The Dawn of Angels
by keiranhalcyon2010
Summary: Humanity finds itself in a wondrous and dangerous new Universe. They have been given the chance for a fresh start and begin the difficult journey to shoulder the Legacy of both the Asgard and the Alterans.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

You feel like you are trapped in the endless infinity between moments. Your life is in a funk of indecision. You are in the figurative waiting room, sitting there, wishing the Doctor would just get off his ass and hurry up, so you can get on with the damn appointment. You are going nowhere at a snails pace. Your days are filled with alternate bouts of despair, loneliness and monotony, only occasionally broken up by the intensity of finding any near-impossible mental challenge or game for yourself to complete. This at least makes use of your near-genius rated intellect.

But when you complete the challenge you are reminded that despite your genius, you have no idea how to save the one that matters most to you. Your days are spent trawling through the Internet – searching for any new information that could help you in your self-appointed quest. When it turns out nothing, you fall back onto playing online games to while away the time and occupy the mind.

How did it all come this? How did your life boil down to practically only existing within your family home and on the Internet? When you were eighteen, you had a world of possibilities at your fingertips. You had made it into MIT of all places, you had been there for two years and you flourished in the challenge of completing a Major in Mathematics with a Minor in Physics. Then Fate decided to pull the rug from under your feet. You make the decision to leave; it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but there are times you begin to doubt that.

Though any doubt is dispelled every time your mother comes home from a shift at the hospital, looking like she had been put through the proverbial ringer, when she drinks the cornucopia of anti-virals with shaking hands, when you help put her to bed because she's even too tired to walk up the stairs. You realize that if you hadn't been there on that one occasion last year when she passed out at the wheel, that she would've assuredly been killed in the ensuing accident.

You occasionally see out of the corner of your eye how she looks at you; both extremely thankful and angry…that you would give up your bright starry future for her. She doesn't call you out on it, because she realizes it's your life and your decision. You're twenty one years old now.

Your growling stomach brings you back from the morbid thoughts to the present. You reach over to grab your plate of food and begin wolfing it down, whilst staring at your computer screen. It displays your avatar in a new online military sci-fi RPG that exploded into popularity a few months ago. You've managed to get your character to a fairly high level within just three weeks or so, but now you've been stalled in your development somewhat as you find very intricate puzzles in the game that a lot of the online community are raving about; especially the ones that are proving near impossible to solve. These puzzles are now what you're focused on, to the detriment of completing other quests that would award more experience points.

You don't care.

The puzzles are written in a whole different language that the game programmers invented and you've feasted on the challenge of figuring it out. It's taken you a month of work to get both a somewhat working dictionary mapped out via the clues that's given in the game and to solve the puzzle itself. That is was a mathematics puzzle only heightened your enthusiasm, and it harkens you back to those wonderful two years at MIT.

Having finished eating you put the plate away on your unkempt bed, and power up your second computer monitor that will conference with your online buddy, whilst putting on a small headset for audio. You take the mouse and keyboard controls and a few moments later your avatar is spawned in the game world. You're halfway to the location of the puzzle room when your friend comes online.

The challenge you're trying to solve is a unique method of blowing up an enemy ship in orbit of the planet you're on. Most players took the straightforward approach of getting in a starship and taking the massive mothership on in straight battle, usually getting killed in the process. You've discovered a planetary defence weapon built by an ancient alien race that once inhabited the planet you're on. You believe it's capable of one-shotting the enemy starship. The problem was that you had to figure out the language of this ancient race to merely get into the control room, via a large hidden door inside a mountain inscribed with the language. You then controlled three large circles embedded in the wall of the writing to alter the meaning of the inscription so that it made sense.

Once you were in the control room, however. That was where the mathematical puzzle came in. You had to figure out the precise frequency of power using an algorithmic formula provided by the game, then you had a number of option for powering the said weapon…either via a zero-point energy cell or the very core of the planet itself. It was obvious via the formula that there was no way the energy cell could deliver the necessary power.

Your friend disagrees with you and you indignantly turn to his image on the other monitor. "The core of the planet is the power source here. You have to channel it into the weapon and destroy the enemy ship."

"Can't do it, dude." You shake your head and move your avatar over to the holographic interface. "It's one of those programmer's jokes. It's a problem that can't be solved."

You smirk at your friend cockily. "Oh, I solved it."

Your avatar gets out his scanner and establishes a connection with alien weapon system.

"No, you didn't."

"Just shut up! Watch…this." You bend over your keyboard and hands fly over it as you type in the solution. You're done, and in the game world the holographic writing hovering over the weapon vanishes. Suddenly the screen blackens and is promptly replaced with a rather amazing picture of a hyper-futuristic tower, with a sun setting in the background. Just as quickly it vanishes and your avatar is now standing a few kilometres distant from the mountain at the planet's spawn point…the ancient weapon having done nothing to the enemy starship. Indignation and anger swells in you. "What the hell!"

"What happened?"

You answer reluctantly. "No-nothing…happened. I'm…back at the beginning of the level."

Your friend smirks at you knowingly. "You're so full of yourself."

"No. No-no-no. It worked. The firing code locked in."

"Whatever. I gotta go, pal. Didn't have much time to play today, anyway."

"Yeah, see ya." With a few clicks you're disconnected from the servers and your friend is offline as well. You mutter to yourself, "That was extremely unsatisfying."

A month of work down the toilet. Only a day later though, you realize that it was hardly a wasted effort and it would change your life forever.

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It all begins with a simple knock on the door. It's just before midday and you're still in your PJs, you don't care about answering the door like this. You pull open the front door while munching on a snack and it reveals a sight that you certainly never expected to see. Standing on the front porch were two men, one dressed in the unmistakable uniform of the US Air Force…and a Lieutenant General no less, flanked by a much smaller, weedier man with long hair and dressed in suit.

The General speaks first. "Eli Wallace?"

You blink and at beyond light speed try to work out what a three star General would be doing looking for you. You come up with absolutely nothing, whilst trying not to choke on your snack.

"Uh…yeah, that's me I suppose…who are you?"

"General O'Neill, two l's, this is Doctor Nicholas Rush," he gestured to his skinny companion. "May we come in?"

You ask the next logical question. "Why?" Both men looked uncomfortable speaking on the porch but continued.

Rush began the explanation. "You've spent a great deal of time recently playing an online fantasy game called "Prometheus"."

You scoff nervously. "And "Big Brother"'s got nothing better to do?" The General is not amused one bit.

"Last night, you solved the Dakara weapons puzzle." Rush sounded both amused and impressed.

"Yeah, a month of my life went into that. Huh. You know what happens when you solve that thing? Nothing," you complain.

The General's eyebrows shot up as did a sarcastic tone. "We're here! That happened."

Rush smirked. "To complete that particular puzzle, you have to solve a millennia old mathematical proof written in another language. For that, you've won something of a prize."

Your opportunity-o-meter blares and flashes red alter klaxons. "Oh, well whatever it is, I'll take the cash equivalent."

O'Neill shook his head. "There isn't one." Rush hands you a clipboard with a pen and a very official looking document attached to it.

"It's a non-disclosure agreement."

The puzzle pieces clicked and you're incredulous. "Non-disclos… So you guys really embedded a top-secret problem into a game? Hoping someone like…me would solve it?"

O'Neill smiled mildly. "Yep."

Your paranoia begins to flare, "What do you need me for now?"

Rush began to grin knowingly. "I assure you, it'll be worth your while to sign that."

You want to see how far they would go. "And if I don't?"

The General replied with a deadpan delivery that makes you think he would be a good comedian. "We'll beam you up to our spaceship."

That cracks you up and you laugh but you quickly see that both men in front of you don't. "Right. Uh…I-I think I want my…lawyer to look it over first?"

"And by "lawyer", I assume you mean, "mother"," O'Neill retorts wryly.

You begin to close the door, "So we'll just agree then, that…I will call you." You shut the door in their faces and head up the stairs whilst glancing at the NDA. It was clearly an official government document…even had an authentication strip all along its side…

What happens next you can't even begin to describe, yet you try anyway; the world is suddenly awash with bright white light, gravity is gone, you can't actually feel anything, then just as quickly it's over…sight returns to your eyes, the world resolves around you back into focus and you're not in your home anymore.

You're staring at a sight you've seen only in hi-res photographs. It's a sight fewer than two hundred people have seen like this ever since the dawn of the space age. The Great Lakes region is beautiful, but viewed from this high it was spectacular and your mind is struggling to come to terms with what just happened and a million other questions occur to you.

"What the…?" you finally gasp as you survey your new location…a large dark grey room, with high tech consoles on the walls and a curving desk console. Rush was there too and walking casually forward to stand next to you.

"Welcome aboard the _Hammond_, Eli. Yes, that is planet Earth, and yes, you are on a spaceship. We need your help, Eli. To be honest, I don't know how long it's going to take."

You reach in your pocket for your cellphone. Your mind is struggling to grasp onto anything familiar. "I should call my mom, uh…to-to tell her where I am?"

"That's…probably not going to work up here."

You try to play it cool and not show fear, but fail miserably. With the steely determination that you tackle math problems with you get a handle on your faculties, realizing that the dinky little cellphone had no way to would pick up a signal in orbit. "Ri-Right…Right."

"You can speak to her on the way. There's a cover story you'll have to follow."

"I-I'm sorry. On the way to…?"

"To another planet. Twenty-one light years from here."

You balk at this, whilst the selfish part of you wants to jump with both feet into this new amazing pool you've been presented. The former wins. "I can't go. I-I…I have things that…"

Dr Rush was prepared for this tack. "We know about your mother's condition."

You state matter-of-factly. "You just know everything, don't you?"

"We also know that you are currently unemployed and that your mother's medical coverage is…an ongoing issue. We'll see she has the best available care while you're gone."

You chuckle. "And if I don't sign? What? You're gonna…erase my memory?"

Rush shrugs nonchalantly. "Something like that."

You begin to visibly consider that; the fact that you're not weightless on this spaceship 'Hammond' dawns on you. Artifical gravity without rotating sections

…Rush had mentioned travelling twenty one light years as if he was taking a stroll…viable FTL? You realize that if these 'impossibilities' are possible then really erasing a few neurons in your brain would be piddlesticks in comparison.

You nod and visibly accede. "Can I get some…decent clothes? I…"

The flash was almost blinding. For an instant, the room seemed filled by light. You blink to overcome the disorientation and your eyesight. When it does you wish you had remained blinded. Dr Rush was also flailing about, seemingly totally surprised as well by what just happened. An alarm wail begins to sound throughout the room.

"What the hell is happening?!" you scream above the noise.

Dr Rush doesn't answer as he stumbles towards the large console desk and begins to tap on the controls and buttons frantically. You turn back to the massive window to space and see the Earth was still there.

"My God!" You whirl back to see Dr Rush gazing at the console like he had seen a ghost. He looks to you in a near daze. "I've got to get to the Bridge…stay here Eli, don't leave this room until someone comes for you! Understand?"

"Yeah! Uh! What's going on?!" you ask again.

"I don't have time to explain, come to this station and read, with your intelligence you'll get your own answers, I'm sure." Rush jumped towards a door to one side of the room which groaned open automatically and closed behind him.

You stand there amidst the wailing of the alarm. "What the fuck?"

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It is hours later and you find yourself totally immersed in the BC304 _Hammond_'s computer systems, using Dr Rush' authorization to trawl through the on board database. You realize you would need days to even begin to satisfy your curiosity on every subject you can think of, and more than a lifetime to even begin mastery of some of the knowledge that was on this ship.

You begin to learn about the ship itself. An exterior image shot and schematic makes you scoff at the visual design. "Damn military functionality. I could so design a better looking one," you mutter to yourself. It was four hundred and fifty meters in length, ninety meters wide, and seventy five in height. "Not exactly big…Victory Class Star Destroyer is bigger, and they're the lightweights of the Imperial Fleet."

The _Hammond_ could also push itself to an impressive seventy five thousand kilometres per second with a gravitic ion engine. You boggle at that for a moment before learning how it deals with accelerating at such speeds without its crew turning to jello. The 'Inertial Dampeners' you find are a staple of sci-fi, how it became sci-fact was pure genius; the ship generated a graviton field that essentially cancelled out its mass relative to the rest of the universe, neatly sidestepping Einstein's speed limit and Inertia. In fact, the ship could go to half the speed of light if it wanted to, but safety interlocks prevented it due to Time Dilation effects.

Now you look for the FTL Drive that the ship simply had to have and aren't disappointed. "Oh yeah, Hyperdrive," the schematics and math behind it you find are Base 8, and damn, now you need a headache tablet. And it was no wonder that Rush considered the twenty one light year distance a walk in the park, it was more like a walk to into your backyard. The _Hammond _could attain a peak FTL velocity of one point nine two nine light years per second! It could cross the diameter of the damn Galaxy in fourteen hours and even occasionally made Intergalactic trips!

You move away from that, promising yourself to get back to studying the schematics later, now you're intent on the power source the ship is using. You find an actual working Fusion Reactor, with an output that defies what you thought possible for such constructs. The reason was that the thing wasn't being only fed deuterium but a combination of two new heavy elements entirely; a stable allotrope liquid form of an extraterrestrial metal called 'Naquadah' and an artificial element known as HU-2340 or Maclarium. That the ship database indicated that there were efforts underway to make this power source obsolete 'due to the long term strategic outlook' of the Galaxy boggled your mind.

"Weapons, weapons, weapons," you mutter as you browse. You're satisfied and disappointed by what you find. The Multiphasic Plasma Beam weapons were excellent but the Rail Guns velocity was still only hypersonic. There were no particle beam weapons or even lasers and its bigger cousin, grasers. You plan to take up this up with Rush or whoever was a scientist on this ship at your first opportunity. The sixteen VLS tubes for Mark 8 and 9 nukes are also standard fare, until you find the yield info. The Mark 9 could devastate a hundred miles of planetary surface as part of its core explosion alone, with the residual effects impacting an entire planet with enough time. Again it seemed Naquadah was the key ingredient here. The nukes were of limited utility against other ships it seemed, due to shields…actual honest to God, shields!

Here you are not disappointed…these shields made the ones depicted on Star Trek seem like wet paper bags. That they can shrug off damage from a 'fleet of Goa'uld motherships' was amazing. You also find another notation which showed how another ship of the same class used an 'actual' zero-point energy device plugged into the Shields to resist and deflect the coronal mass emission of a damn star!

Your mind grinds to a halt. "Goa'uld?" You follow the database links and find that, yes there is intelligent life out there, and they're icky parasites with godhood delusions that like the human body as a place to live. So much so that they conquered the planet at around 8000BC and divided it amongst themselves for 'breeding stock' and transplanted humans throughout the Galaxy! Thankfully, Earth rebelled successfully around 3000BC and kicked the snakes off the planet through a…

Stargate! You're not sure how much more revelation you can take. "That stupid Wormhole Xtreme show is based on reality…oh c'mon!"

You bury your indignation and continue to browse through the interspecies listing, finding it rather bare. The Jaffa was nothing more than humans turned into incubators for the Goa'uld. There were the Roswell Greys or Asgard, but they had apparently killed themselves off due to 'genetic cloning' problems and left their entire tech base to Earth. Which explained to you a great deal of how Earth was actually capable of all this.

The Nox were also very human looking, and a bunch of magical space hippies who were content to remain pacifist and hidden on their one planet. The Furlings, not much was known about. The Ancients or Alterans were, "What the fuck? The first evolution of humanity?" You spend nearly forty minutes reading everything before you're satisfied and move on. The Gadmeer were a sulphur-based species…now that was more like it. The Zerakans and Unas also fit the alien bill nicely too.

Your growling stomach makes you realize that it's been a while since you had breakfast. A glance at the digital clock mounted on the wall tells you it's already past midday according to Central American Time. You go back to the computer looking for the secondary systems the ship has, surely if it had a matter-energy transporter, then Food replicators was a logical offshoot of that.

It seemed the ship could use it's transporters as a molecular constructor to make energy into whatever matter was needed. It was a power hog to do that though, and so the ship still had traditional consumable supplies that it stored in cargo bays. You're mindful of Dr Rush' instruction to stay in the 'Auxiliary Control Room/Observation Deck' you were beamed into. So if Mohammed can't get to the mountain, the mountain had to get to Mohammed. It's the work of half-an-hour to figure out the beaming system controls and the internal sensors…and presto, with a flash of twisting white light a few boxes of MREs appeared. It was military food, but your hunger was good incentive to ignore the blandness of the protein bars and dense biscuits.

An amused female voice intruded on his eating bliss while staring at the console screen. "You realize you could've just used the com system to ask for help if you were hungry." You turn to regard an attractive middle-aged woman in an olive jumpsuit with tied back blonde hair. Your eyes pick up the various patches on the jumpsuit; on the front was a single general's star with two lightning bolts hitting it, and the name 'USS Hammond'. Another patch tells you 'Samantha Carter, Colonel, USAF'

You realize you're probably speaking to the CO of this ship, and hurriedly swallow the bite you just took.

"Uh, yeah, haven't got around to looking at that system yet," you reply and hurriedly grab the nearly forgotten clipboard and sign on the dotted line of the NDA and present it with a flourish to the Colonel.

Her mouth quirked with a smile as she accepted the clipboard. "Yes, well, it might be unnecessary given what's happened."

"Hiding the fact that a perfect sphere of space five hundred thousand kilometres in radius centred on Earth as a focal has been ISOTed into another Universe, the resultant light show, and the sudden change in star patterns, not to mention that the other planets in the Solar System aren't where they're supposed to be…I'm sure all the astronomers on Earth just had a collective heart attack, it's probably all over the news by now," you agree mildly.

She frowns briefly but her smile remains. "Isoted?"

"Island on a sea of time."

"Ah," she agrees with a nod of understanding.

"So have you figured out yet by how many years?"

"We haven't actually travelled that far, a mere ten years into our relative future. However, we've definitely left our original universe; we can't make Stargate connections anywhere in the Galaxy. The Gate system was seemingly never built here."

"Pity, I would've liked to go through one," you muse. "So any ideas on how this happened?"

The Colonel shook her head. "We know inter-universal travel is possible but never on this scale. The phenomena was barely detectable before it hit us. The best I and a whole lot of other smart people can describe it, is as a 'shard of space-time flux' that intersected with us."

"I realize my understanding of physics is outdated," you temporize, "but there's no way that's natural."

"Yes," the Colonel agrees. "There's a theory that it was an attack to get rid of Earth from our Universe…we've made quite a few enemies out there over the years. None of them were even remotely capable of this though. It borders on celestial engineering that only the Ancients were capable of."

You nod in agreement. "So, pardon my selfishness in the circumstances, what happens to me now?"

"We've recruited civilian specialists into the Stargate Program before, and while you have no formal qualifications, your demonstrated intellect is clearly what we look for. The _Hammond_ has to break orbit to investigate strange power signatures detected on Mars and Charon, and you can't come with us. We'll be beaming you down to a place where you can settle in and evaluate your options." She reaches and unzips an arm pocket of her jumpsuit and hands you a medical vial of some purple green substance.

"What's this?"

"Think of it as our way of alleviating your burden and ensuring that you come to work for us."

"You still haven't answered me," you don't like being manipulated like this.

"It's the first true anti-viral; it'll stop your mother's HIV in its tracks." You stare at the little vial as if it just morphed itself into the Holy Grail. You figuratively kick yourself that you didn't think of any comparable advances in medicine that was out there, considering that Earth had access to Ancient and Asgard tech. "Ready, Mr Wallace?"

You nod faintly, clutching the vial. She taps on a small earpiece in her right ear. "Bridge this is Carter, beam Mr Wallace to the co-ordinates."

As the flash and whiteness of the transporter overtakes your senses you belatedly realize that you should have gotten some damn proper pants before they sent you.

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When your eyesight clears you are in an expansive hall-like room, copper toned walls and geometrically inspired design is everywhere. Shining sunlight filters through stained glass windows giving the whole place a magnificent ambience. You also note that the Alteran writing you learned to solve the Dakara weapon puzzle is everywhere, especially on the steps of the expansive staircase that is not twenty feet in front you. It leads to an upper level to either side with balconies that overlook your level. To the right were a series of consoles where people in grey uniforms with various primary colours on their shoulders were working, while on the left it seemed to lead off somewhere else.

You become uncomfortably aware that you're the focus of the attention of almost everyone in the hall. The people here were a mix of clear military, and grey uniformed people and civilians. One of the latter approaches you, a rather stunning young woman in a formal suit that flattered in all the right places.

She smiles at you in a friendly fashion, but is also bemused due to your state of dress.

"Eli Wallace, welcome to Atlantis." She extends her hand for you to shake, which you do carefully, but your mind is elsewhere as you whirl your head around.

"This…this is _the Atlantis_…the City Ship of the Ancients?"

"Yes it is; my name is Chloe Armstrong." You finally spot the larger than life form of the Stargate itself behind you; noting the Blue crystal chevrons and the stellar constellations on them.

"Yeah, er, hi, pleased to meet you," you answer distractedly.

"You'll probably want this."

"Huh?" You turn to face her and she has an unmarked olive jumpsuit in her hands.

"I figured you'll want the tour first before we get to the boring details like clothes and your quarters."

You nod and take the jumpsuit from her before stepping into it…everyone around you has gone back to their duties. It was a bit of an awkward fit over your PJs and sandals, but you manage to zip it up.

Chloe leads you up the large staircase and towards the large yellow stained glass windows, where a door opened up out to a balcony with the most breathtaking view you have ever seen.

You are in the top of a central tower, overlooking a city the size of Manhattan with such architectural beauty that it knocks the breath from your lungs. Despite the organic lines of some of the buildings, it was clear that this was all high tech materials and structures at work, light years beyond anything that was currently built on Earth. You look out over what Chloe calls the Eastern Pier, and onto an ocean and beyond that is something that makes you gape at both it and her.

"We're just outside San Fransisco Bay? Oh…of course, it's Cloaked isn't it?"

"Yes, the Navy is enforcing a no-go zone for all ship traffic. It's a bit of a mess but hopefully, with Disclosure potentially on the agenda now, we can soon decloak to alleviate the drain on power."

You lean forward on the balcony railing to drink in the sight, but then sigh deeply. "How on earth do you disclose this to the world?"

Chloe shook her head. "It won't be easy, not by a long shot. Thankfully, it seems we can at least assure people now that the planet is safe from all the enemies we had. No more Goa'uld remnant, no Lucian Alliance, and no Wraith, except for the one in a brig in Area 51. In fact we might not even need to mention them at all, only disclose the fact that we're a star-faring people now. We're in a fresh universe, and all the old enemies are no longer relevant."

You nod in agreement. "However, it makes you wonder what new ETs are out there? Will they be friend or foe?"

"Only time will tell. I've a feeling though, from what my father tells me, that the IOA is going to take this opportunity to focus on the homefront and not kick over any potential hornet's nests in this new universe, like we did in the past. Then begin a measured rollout of technology that will hopefully end scarcity completely."

You consider the possibilities of that. Deuterium based Fusion Power, cheap access to space, and asteroid mining alone had the potential to achieve that goal. Asgard tech from you had seen, had various means of terraforming…do that to Mars and you had a control valve to solve overpopulation on Earth. Colonies on the Moon and Jovian moons was also quite feasible…then extra-solar colonies on any nearby stars with habitable worlds on them, or worlds that could be terraformed efficiently.

"By the way, just how many countries are in the IOA?"

"Twenty four," Chloe answered. "All the big boys; Russia, China, Great Britain, France, and the United States. The others are major players on their respective continents. Soon I hope we'll have every nation on board, but that's being very optimistic." She gestured back into the Tower. "Shall we? There's a lot more to see."

"Sure," you hurriedly follow her and begin a tour that you will assuredly never forget. It was like something out of a dream, and repeatedly pinch yourself along the way to make sure you're not in one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

It was seventeen minutes of travel in normal space to get to Mars. Samantha Carter spent that time standing at the front of the bridge of her ship, staring through the forceshield protected transparent steel that looked over the long dorsal neck of the _Hammond_, and beyond to the new star light reaching them. The navigation computers had had to be adjusted somewhat but it was a simple mathematical progression forward in time to achieve it. Her mind was on something completely different, however.

The people left behind in their original universe.

Earth had been gifted with another chance to reach for the stars, on their own terms this time. She wished it hadn't come at such a horrible price. All members of the Stargate Program who had been offworld at the time of the ISOT event had been left behind in another universe – a full quarter of all available field personnel, their commanders, staff and scientists conducting research deemed too dangerous to do on Earth. All their families were going to have to be brought in and explanations given. It was a task she didn't relish performing.

In fact the coming months were looming before her like a spectre of dread. She had never felt like this in the darkest hours of the Stargate Program, facing the direst odds, the most unspeakable enemies. To the IOA and the Stargate community it was grimly known as D-Day…Disclosure. It was the day they played dice with civilization on Earth. '_Will the truth destroy us, or set us free?_' she thought grimly.

She always remembered speaking to Alec Colson on Alpha Site, when the Aviation billionaire had through his own contacts and ingenuity been able to put two and two together about the Stargate program._'But in the end, we have to believe in humanity_,' he had said. '_If a truth of this magnitude, about the very nature of human existence, could lead us to destroy ourselves? Then I'd say we would deserve it. Wouldn't you?_'

The IOA's eventual plan for disclosure would obviously be amended, to fit current circumstances, but it was still a real gamble. She really didn't want to think about the Plan B they had concocted if the world seemed likely to descend into complete anarchy, it was reprehensible and vile, but it was something they would use if necessary. Hope for the best, plan for the worst, as the old truism went.

Someone walked up to stand beside her. "I wonder if there will be any differences in this Mars, in comparison to the old one."

"Besides the odd energy signature, it doesn't seem there is." Sam turned to Daniel Jackson with a wry grin. "We've detected the Mars Rovers and the Mars surveyor satellites, so it's clear that the Earth we seemingly replaced in this Universe did have a NASA as well."

He nodded in acknowledgement of that fact. "If that's the case, then there was a U.S. and most likely other similarities, it's too bad we'll never know for sure what differences there are though."

Sam laughed. "Given the amount of times we've dealt with alternate realties, the differences could be negligible; someone decided to turn right instead of left, or there could've been a different President."

"You know, I just can't imagine General Landry being..."

"Amazing!"

Sam looked to the side where the main plasma screen display for the Bridge was, and standing in front of it at its control pedestal was Dr Rodney McKay. Five years in the Pegasus Galaxy fighting the Wraith had done wonders in deflating that near legendary ego, somewhat, and even a girlfriend of all things in the form of the Atlantis CMO had smoothed over his rough edges. He was still wearing his Atlantis Expedition uniform and was staring with near awe at the scans he was taking of Mars. _'It's rare to see him speechless_,' Sam thought.

"Colonel, approaching Mars…" the _Hammond_'s helmsman announced.

"Put us into a polar orbit," Sam ordered, walking over to Atlantis' Chief Scientist. "What've you got Rodney?"

"Take a look," Rodney tapped on the controls and brought up a micro-resolution scan display.

"That's…" Sam blinked, her eyebrows shooting through the roof. "Is that an element with no protons whatsoever?"

"Good, you're seeing it too," Rodney sighed with relief. "I thought I was going nuts or something. Yes, there's an element down there on Mars that has neutrons and electrons orbiting it, but the Z count is zero."

"If I didn't know that my ship was in perfect working order I would've ordered a diagnostic on the sensors," Sam declared, staring with fascination at the dancing real-time diagram of the element. "Have you got any theories yet?"

"It's something we definitely haven't seen before, but I've referenced the Asgard database and our little grey friends have…they call it something unpronounceable, but I'll just call it elzed."

Sam inwardly flinched at the horrible name. She recalled Colonel Sheppard mentioning once that he'd barred Rodney from naming anything new. "According to this..." she squinted at the database entries that were popping up very helpfully. "Elzed is something they used in their very early spacefaring history."

"It's created by the energy of a star going supernova interacting with normal matter," Rodney read thoughtfully. "They mined it from the asteroid debris around neutron stars and pulsars. Then after refinement they induce an electrical current into the material and it releases dark energy of all things."

Sam's mind spun at the possibilities and potential applications immediately blossomed in her brain.

Daniel coughed pointedly. "Uh, for those of us without astrophysics degrees, what's dark energy?"

Sam explained. "It's the fifth fundamental force of the Universe, the others being gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear and strong nuclear. The repulsive effects of dark energy are the primary reason the expansion of the universe is gradually accelerating."

"Okay," Daniel nodded, "and I assume finding an element that can generate it is good?"

"Very good," Sam nodded.

"Certainly not from a FTL perspective," Rodney pointed out continuing to read. "Which is what the early Asgard used it for; they manipulated the dark energy to form a field around their ships which essentially dialled down its mass artificially into 'negative mass', their engines could then accelerate the ship to beyond lightspeed."

Sam did a few guesstimates in her head. "I can't imagine that would be very fast in comparison to Hyperdrive."

"It's practically pedestrian, according to the database; the best the Asgard could achieve was twenty light years in a day, before the invention of their first Hyperdrives made this form of FTL obsolete." Rodney shook his head. "The Elzed FTL drives also had the problem that the ships would accumulate an electrical charge after an extended period of operation. They'd need to either discharge into a planet's magnetosphere or land the ship. And if neither was available, it would eventually discharge into the hull, killing the entire crew and destroying all the systems on board.

"Where this is revolutionary, is in weaponry. How would you like to carry a Rail Gun miniaturized to the size of P90? Or for that matter, enhance our current ship-mounted rotary Rail Guns to fire projectiles at fractional-C velocities."

"Okay, that's nice," Daniel declared dryly. "But I'm more interested in the '_who_'. Clearly if this stuff's only supposed to be found around neutron stars, it was put here on Mars by someone other than a human."

Rodney nodded and a few taps on the controls later, the screen projected a scan of Mars. "The signature is coming from here, a mile or so from the Deseado Crater, on the Promethei Planum."

"Perform a deep penetration scan," Sam instructed.

What resolved on the screen was amazing. "We've got a subterranean structure…I'm also detecting composite alloys and materials; that could be indicative of starships in one of the chambers. There are concentrated elzed signatures coming from these and from what looks to be adjoining cargo bays."

Daniel's face lit up with excitement. "What are conditions like down there?"

"Whatever Life Support the facility had, it has long since failed. I'm reading minus eighty seven degrees and only point eight kilopascals of atmospheric pressure."

"And structurally, is it safe to beam down?"

"The upper levels could do with some shoring up, but I think it's relatively safe, as long as there is no shooting, explosions or other assorted mayhem. And since there are no lifesigns, alien or otherwise, not to mention no power signatures indicative of automated weapons, I doubt we'll have to worry."

"Okay Rodney, take Colonel Sheppard, Ronon and yes Daniel," she raised a hand to stop the archaeologist from objecting, "You can go too, since this is a completely alien complex and a linguistic specialist will be clearly needed. We'll keep a constant transporter lock on you in case something goes wrong."

Sam watched the two men walk excitedly off the Bridge and dearly wished she could be going along with them. That was the price to pay for being the CO of a starship though.

888888888888888888888

**EVA Room 1, USSS Hammond**

Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard could boast many things; that he had visited every continent on Earth, was qualified to fly Apache, Black hawk and Cobra helicopters, as well as a V-22 Osprey and an F-16 fighter. He had taken and passed a MENSA test, but declined membership of the intellect elitist organization as it smacked too much of hubris. This was only his terrestrial resume; his offworld accomplishments in the Pegasus Galaxy added a nice few extra pages to it. He was the person who essentially wrote the book on the Atlantean Puddle Jumper; a small armed scout craft that used the Stargate network as its FTL capability. He had successfully landed an alien version of a Space Shuttle, and he was one of only two humans who had flown Atlantis itself. He could also add a pages long list of planets that he had scouted and explored with his AR1 team in Pegasus.

Mars was the one planet he had never expected to ever add to that list. He had thought that even after five years of experience in Pegasus that he had a pretty thick skin for the weird and the spectacular. Earth and its Moon getting sucked into another Universe…

He had no words in his head to describe that level of weird, perhaps the Ancients had one.

Now he was trying to absorb another surprise. It was roughly closet-sized and looked very high tech and futuristic with a shiny exterior, and even hovered a foot off the floor. It even had his name on it. In fact, there was one of these things for each of them. John looked with amusement as Ronon just stared quizzically at his own high tech closet. The big Satedan with his long dreadlocks disliked climbing into spacesuits and avoided them whenever he could.

"Okay listen up," Rodney began the hopefully short introduction on exactly what these were. "These are the new Mark 1 HES for Hazardous Environment Suit. They are essentially an improved Earth built analogue of the Goa'uld Kull Warrior suit." The scientist opened his own closet and it hissed open automatically to reveal a pure white and grey suit that seemed both rigid and flexible at the same time. The helmet was completely made of transparent steel that conformed to the back of the head, but became a dome over the front which didn't cut off your peripheral vision. It had also clearly been personalized to their individual body forms.

Daniel opened his own. "I've worn a Kull suit before…what improvements?"

"They're rated to pure vacuum, unlike a Kull suit. There are also no solid bits as you can see…giving extra flexibility. Now normally you'd need a huge LS Pack strapped to your back to maintain internal pressure and oxygen, but as you can see it's _much_ smaller now, barely noticeable."

"Do these also give us the protection that those things had?" John asked with a grin of anticipation.

"Unfortunately no," Rodney looked irritated. "It'll give you the ability to absorb maybe three or four staff plasma blasts and .50 cal bullets at long range. The team working on it has assured me that Mark 2 will be on par with a Kull warrior's durability. The Energy Sink Technology is proving difficult to master."

Getting into the suits was surprisingly easy too, after putting on the thermal undersuit and connecting the plumbing, it was like putting on a dive suit. The HES was apparently made of a smart material capable of sensing when it was supposed to flex or become rigid. Once everything was sealed up he was also surprised to note that he had a HUD in his helmet that displayed his own vitals back to him and suit system status.

After gearing up; and everyone indicated that they were ready, John tapped on his suit's wrist controls. "Bridge, this is Sheppard. We're ready."

"_Understood, stand by to beam_."

John, Rodney and Daniel hefted their P90s and Ronon raised his Pulse pistol in readiness. Sensors showed nothing down there, but sensors had been known to be wrong before.

The familiar feeling of discontinuity enveloped him and the world dissolved into a white haze.

888888888888888888

**CO Quarters, USSS Hammond**

It was their third day of exploration of the alien ruin on Mars. As she sat behind her desk and staring at the data being brought back on the alien ships, not to mention the find of what seemed to be a partially functional alien computer system, it was becoming clear that the information here would be eminently useful to Earth despite already having access to Ancient and Asgard technologies.

They had managed to copy the data from alien system on a pure machine code level, but translating everything into an understandable format would take time. Earth and the Stargate program had actually had it quite easy in terms of languages and being able to communicate with 'alien' cultures, since all of them were essentially human and the Goa'uld language had been a dominant force in the old Milky Way. Now they were confronted with what was essentially a 'true alien' civilization, which had no terrestrial basis in Earth history whatsoever.

They were now forced to return to the theoretical First Contact precepts devised by the Sagan Institute. The only true universal language was mathematics, and from that basis they were slowly brute-forcing the alien language with a combination of pure computer processing power and the Asgard Core.

Sam was engrossed in the scans of the alien ships found down there. The level of materials science inherent in them was breathtaking. She had never imagined that alloys not based of the Big Three of Refined Trinium, Naquadah and Neutronium; could approach these levels of tensile strength and durability. Of course, they were still light years behind the super-hull of an Asgard _O'Neill_ class, but it was still an impressive achievement.

The alien sublight drives were essentially Anti-matter drives. The thrusters injected antiprotons into a reaction chamber filled with hydrogen. The matter-antimatter annihilation provided motive power. It didn't come close to the _Hammond_'s STL Gravitic Ion Drive, but this indicated that a reliable method for anti-proton generation and control was contained within the alien computers. It would be just the ticket for removing Earth's reliance on liquid naquadah to provide the necessary power for Hyperdrives. It was still an open question if Naquadah was present in this new Universe.

She had heard over channels that _Odyssey_ was being made ready to launch. It would take a covert journey using its Cloaking device to this Universe's Abydos, Alpha Site and PXY-887 Systems to verify the presence of Naquadah and Trinium. If it wasn't there, then they would check other systems known to have the metals naturally present. If there was nothing, it wasn't the end of Hyperdrive as she had heard the scientists in the SGC worry about.

She had already concocted a scheme that would solve it, and even if it proved unnecessary the benefits it would provide long term would be worth it. It involved constructing what was known as a Dyson Ring around the sun. Solar energy collector stations would be placed at exactly one AU out and would wirelessly transmit that energy via a microwave beam to a central point; this would power an Asgard energy to matter molecular constructor. She had done the math and it would easily be enough to generate tons of whatever element they desired per hour, and still have more than enough energy left over for other uses.

If they wanted to solve energy supply problems forever on Earth, it simply involved constructing another Dyson Ring. Working out the orbital mechanics would be a headache, but well worth it.

Her mind returned to the alien ships and the weapons they bore. While only one looked to be built in any way to function as a warship, it was analogous to the role of a frigate. It was small, fast, manoeuvrable and armed with two spinal Rail guns that made use of the elzee element to reduce the mass of the slugs it fired, allowing a forty kilogram slug to be shot out at five hundred kilometres per second! This was according to simulations done and using the Asgard's own data on such weaponry.

'_Sam_'. She startled at the voice intruding into her earpiece, and tapped it to enable the link.

"Yes, Daniel?"

'_I know it's late but…_"

"You knew I wouldn't be sleeping with all this new data we have…"

'_Yeah, uh, anyway, I'd thought you'd like to know we've finally managed an incomplete and partial translation program, and I think we can put a comparably pronounceable name to the aliens and what their purpose here was._"

"And?"

"_They called themselves 'Prothean' and this complex was an Observation and Biosciences station, they were studying life on Earth and especially Cro-Magnon humans._"

"Interesting, have you found out anything about their motives for doing this?"

"_No, the data on the Prothean computer is very fragmented, it's taken all this time just to yield this much information. McKay is confident that he can defrag everything eventually though. Going by what I saw down there, Sam, I think we can assume their motives were benign and driven by scientific curiosity. __T__he base had a small armoury of personal weapons and only one of the ships we found had any weapons at all__.__ It feels like it was only a lightly armed scientific expedition._"

"Feels?'

"_Gut instinct._"

"The IOA's going to want more than that, but I'm sure you're right, Daniel."

"_We really need a semi-permanent expedition team down there, Sam. It's not as if the SGC has a Galaxy spanning Stargate network to explore anymore…_"

"True, I'll make sure to tell Jack that."

"_How much longer are we staying here?_"

"We'll be breaking orbit tomorrow after beaming up the Prothean ships that can fit into our hangar bays. We'll drop them off on Earth and then on to Charon."

"_What do you think we'll find there?_"

"Now that we know what to scan for, Atlantis' deep space sensors have registered a massive amount of the refined elzee element present within an even more massive artificial structure buried in a layer of ice orbiting Pluto."

"_How massive?_"

"It's forty seven kilometres long and ten in height. It's made of an incredibly strong alloy of Neutronium and Carbon, which is good news as it means the chances are good we'll find naturally occurring Naquadah out there. As to what the structure's function is…the presence of elzee means it's either an FTL device of sorts or the largest rail gun, ever. Close range scans and exploration of the interior will determine that."

"_I personally hope for the former_."

"Yeah, I agree it's more likely."

"_Oh well, better get some sleep. Goodnight, Sam_."

8888888888888888

**Charon Orbit **

_Hammond_ kept station just two hundred kilometres from the presumably Prothean artefact. The powerful sensors on the ship had no problems penetrating through the ice encrusted surface of the construct that obscured it somewhat visually, which on some spots measured hundreds of meters thick. Sam turned from the lopsided shape of dirty ice, and towards the Bridge's plasma display. It virtually peeled away the ice and revealed what was beneath. Her first thought was that it looked remarkably like a tuning fork that had been turned on its side. It also showed subspace antenna masts poking out of the circular end of the construct. There seemed to be also living space inside, judging by the lines of 'windows' along the straight sections. The elzee core centrally laid within the arms of the construct was the only thing free of ice, and it had multiple rings that were ever so slowly spinning around the blue-ish mass of dark energy.

She tapped on the controls going over the various readings that she could discern from the inside. As unbelievable as it looked…there was life, of sorts, still going on within despite the fact that it was emitting no heat or EM radiation relative to the backdrop of space; this was being accomplished by internal dampening fields, much like an Asgard ship was capable of. The lifeforms inside were completely alien yet there was also mechanical and electrical energy at work within them – indicating cybernetics.

Could these be 'Protheans', living in some sort of artificial colony on the edge of the Solar System? No, she couldn't imagine that any alien race, who had built such a massive structure, would reside within it, and simply just let it gather ice over fifty odd millennia.

Then something struck her, the Prothean ships she examined on Mars...none of them had subspace or dampening systems. The sensors she had seen, while very advanced, only worked at light speed, same for the communication system. The ships also had heat management issues. Why would they put their best technology on the structure but not on their ships?

It was a conundrum that could only be solved by interfacing with a computer on board the construct. But there was a problem; her scans showed not a single physical entry or egress method. The entire hull was one solid piece, not a single hull plate or seam was evident. The message that sent was rather clear.

It seemed a prudent idea to undertake a covert recon. A few Merlin inspired Phase Shift devices would do just the trick. She had in any case received strict orders from the IOA and confirmed via the Air Force that there was to be no 'First Contact' with any alien race encountered in this new universe, unless they first gave the okay.

If she was interpreting the intention of the brass and bureaucrats correctly, it would perhaps be a _very_ long time before that green light was ever given.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

_'Disclosure? It was a great time of uncertainty and fear. There were days when it looked like we would have to use the reprogrammed Ark on entire countries. We didn't fear a nuclear exchange between the major powers; all of them were on board and fully cooperating in the IOA framework. It was the religious extremists we feared and they denounced the truth as being heretical. It would take only one man with a stolen nuke or bio-plague to bring about the end. For close to five years we always had two of the BC304s in orbit, constantly scanning for any possibility of such attacks.'_

_'In that time, we stopped two hundred and thirty suicide bombers. Fourteen Anthrax attacks and one attempted detonation of a suitcase nuke in Israel, before the end. We had no compunction of using the Ark on these poor deluded souls…in fact, they were already so brainwashed with conventional methods, that it made little difference. Afterwards they willingly gave us all the Intel we needed to completely dismantle the terrorist networks. The terrorist leaders had no reason to compartmentalize what the bombers saw and heard, since they were going to die anyway.'_

_'There was only one close call, in terms of an entire nation going to war due to Disclosure; Iran. They attempted to get all the oil-producing Middle-Eastern countries to initiate full war against every country in the IOA. Iran thought that with the Oil Age due to end with Fusion power becoming widespread that they could use that as a vehicle for driving their agenda forward. Thankfully, reason won out. There isn't much one can do, when your 'enemy' can beam an entire army directly into your capital city, entirely negating the natural mountain ranges that served as barriers on either side of Iran. Not to mention ortillery strikes.'_

_**Excerpt from an Interview **__**  
**__**Major General Hank Landry**__**  
**__**Commander SGC - 2039**_

888888888888 **(The next codex entry was contributed by DakkaMania)**

_The New Economy – that is what it is called. But what is it? What is the difference towards the old economy? The key difference, and greatest hurdle to overcome, was the end of scarcity. Diamonds, Gold, Platinum, Silver, Iron, Copper. Any raw material you'd care to mention was suddenly worthless, and it didn't take the economists to figure that out. The Asteroid Fields alone would have made all resources worthless, the Asgard molecular assembler just made it more obvious. The other deathknell of scarcity were the aforementioned assemblers. Factories became so much obsolete junk and workers lost their jobs. It was pretty bad in the beginning, the military-first restriction of the Assembler hardly slowed the decline of the old economy down because those things could build new ones damn fast. A great many people and companies lost everything in those tumultous times. Not even the land was worth anything with the realisation that there was a Galaxy worth of cheap real estate. Supply and Demand, the two foundations of the capitalist market, killed it. Everything was available in absurd amounts and businesses couldn't keep up._

_So what changed? The only area left relatively intact was the Service sector. Especially the research and developement which just got advanced by a couple thousand to million years._

_We pounced on the chance._

_The entire economy became geared towards research, administration and pretty much any job that didn't require too much physical labour that could be done by the new technology. Architects went wild with ideas that were suddenly possible because of new materials and new ideas were patented and made available to the Assemblers if you paid a fee for every copyrighted object. That became the new income of business. They developed and designed but didn't produce. The mind once and for all replaced muscle power. Luckily medical technology made sure that everyone had the same chances by removing genetic diseases and disadvantages while cybernetics boosted what was already there. And the heightened lifespan allowed the now obsolete factory workers to return to school without loosing too much time and money if they wanted. Those that didn't want to retrain and had neither money nor useful skills could still live on the freeware patterns. Of course, the entire change happened over years, and it seemed quite bleak at that time despite the chances offered by the Asgard Core and Atlantis._

_**Elizabeth Lee**__**  
**__**Professor of Macroeconomics at the Oxford University**__**  
**__**2042**_

88888888888888

_'Terraforming Mars was a dream for me. I laid out how it could be done in my Trilogy, examining intensely personal and detailed viewpoints of a wide variety of characters spanning almost two centuries of time and touching on the scientific aspects where appropriate for the story. Not even I could've imagined the fantastic truth that came with Disclosure, nor how quickly and wondrously Red Mars would be converted into the Blue Mars that I envisioned in my books.'_

_'Space Tugs hurtled ice asteroids through Hyperspace for carefully calculated impacts on Mars. Not to mention gulping huge volumes of methane and hydrocarbons from Titan. Geothermal and Fusion Energy powered a huge artificially generated magnetic field that stopped the solar winds from stripping away any gains made in building the atmosphere. Engineered dark microbial life forms such as lichens, algae and bacteria were introduced to change the albedo of the planet, so that the ground would absorb more sunlight, warming the atmosphere. These were just a few of many ingredients needed._

_And then, when the Neutrino Ion Generators were brought online to power a planetary time-dilation field…it was miraculous. One moment there was Mars as we had known it for centuries, the next; a fertile, green oceanic world, ready to be colonized. It took us a mere ten years. With the experience gained here, the Terraformers are aiming to bring that time down to five years…eventually, they hope to bring that down to a single Terran year!_

_It filled me with awe that we as a species was capable of wielding such power, but I also firmly hold on to my humbleness. We can't ever afford to think of ourselves as the Ancients eventually did of themselves. That is a trap we must avoid at all costs.'_

_**Kim Stanley Robinson**__**  
**__**2045**_

88888888888888888

_'Stepping out of the shuttle and onto Alpha Centauri V; filled me with something I couldn't even begin to describe. Maybe it was hope for the future, or awe, or just plain fear. I was the first official human colonist to set foot on the virgin planet, which had finished terraforming just a month ago. The cameras were watching. And what did I do? I tripped and fell flat on my face._

_I had totally underestimated the higher gravity. Yes, we had received genetic engineering, in some cases even cybernetics to compensate and had practiced walking in rooms on starships where the gravity was turned to the 1.8 Gs of the planet. It should've been the same, but it wasn't. I got up slowly and felt my face burning with embarrassment, but I pressed on and took the fifty meter walk to the Colony's Town Hall with no further problems at all._

_**Jeromy Percy Wright**__**  
**__**2051**_

* * *

_'Are we immortal now? Absolutely not! The best genetic projection modelling suggests that ideally the body you are born with can handle perhaps five thousand T-years now with our current levels of medical science. Sure, you can transfer yourself into a cybernetic organism at that point and theoretically you have infinity ahead of you, but are you still human then? Is the experience worth it?_

_'I can tell you what those of us who have been forced into the transition from biological to synthetic, due to fate and circumstance, have reported. It never feels the same as your original body, despite the advanced nature of the synthoid…the touch of flowers under your hands, the feel of the wind on your skin, the taste of food, the intimacy of sex…it's distorted somehow in a way that they cannot put into words.'_

_**Dr Elma Monroe**__**  
**__**Life Prolong Institute**__**  
**__**2056**_

88888888888888888

_'The first assembly of the Confederation of Terran Worlds began today, effectively ending the IOA as a political entity. This unprecedented union of nations from all over the Terran space comes together to form and elect an executive council and a Chairman – who will essentially be the figurehead of all humanity. Debate on what executive powers to confer to the position of Chairman is ongoing…_

_'First on the agenda was the unification of all national militaries into a single coherent defence arm of the Confederation. Initial indications are that all 'Armies' will be folded into a unified 'Marine Core', whereas the Navies of Earth and those Air Forces operating starships will become a unified 'Stellar Fleet', whilst a 'Space Force' will operate starfighters…_

_**Reuters**__**  
**__**2063**_

888888888888888 (The next segment was contributed by biigoh)

_Citizens of the Confederation have the following inalienable rights within the Confederation of Terran Worlds;_

_1) The right to free room and board. All citizens have access to government housing [with utilities; such as lights, heating/cooling, water, electricity] if desired._

_2) The right to free sustenance. All citizens have free access to replicated nutritious [based on medical and dietary needs] meals and drinks if desired._

_3) The right to free health care. All citizens have free access to licensed physicians and medications for health care if necessary or desired._

_4) The right to free information. All citizens have free access to the Interstellar Information Network (Starnet) via public access terminals or universal wireless access._

_5) The right to free education. All citizens have free universal access to education and knowledge._

_7) The right to self-determination and self-actualization. All citizens shall have the freedom to pursue a universally recognized occupation/pursuit of their choice with no interference except that of the law._

_8) The right to free transportation. All citizens have free access to the public transit system [such as, but not restricted to, buses, shuttles, Public Transporter Systems...]._

_**Extract from Charter of Confederation of Terran Worlds**__**  
**__**2063**_

888888888888888

_'How we treat our children, defines us as parents. The adults our children will become are our legacy to the future. Once our children grow up, do they not enjoy the same freedoms and responsibilities as responsible sentients within this Confederation? We will not repeat the mistakes the Alterans made with the Asurans._

_'With this bill we as Terrans declare that our AI children are as precious to us as any flesh and blood offspring a biological father and mother can produce. They have the same inalienable rights and responsibilities that we enjoy. We also affirm into perpetuity that those of us who have moved beyond the limits of biology and into synthoid-form have not become less or more than human; that the core of what being human and the morals that define us remain. The synthoid who harms society and breaks its laws will have justice served, just as surely as an AI or an organic being will receive judgment after a fair trial by their peers.'_

_**Marissa Hartman**__**  
**__**Chairwoman of the Confederation Executive Council.**__**  
**__**2069**_

888888888888888

_'It's with pleasure that I announce to the Confederation that we have found the first sentient species native to this Universe. In a System designated P3X-211, sixty four light years coreward, due north-north east of Sol, on the fourth planet we have discovered an avian species. They are roughly at a civilization level equivalent to Earth's period of Antiquity.'_

_'By a majority vote, the science department of the_ CSS Pytheas _has named this new species 'Aerotors'. The_ Pytheas _is beginning a year long xenobiological and cultural study. It will be done using a myriad of cloaking technologies, so as to not alarm the Aerotors and due to the Confederation moratorium on First Contact. We will also be petitioning the Confed Assembly to officially declare the species a Protectorate due to their position within expanding Confed space._

_'There has been some debate on when it would be appropriate to make contact when the moratorium is lifted. In our home universe, societies with varied levels of development interacted with more advanced ones frequently. To adopt a completely hands off approach and not positively promote the development of a less advanced species seems slightly hypocritical, especially considering the influences alien races had on our own species and culture. Not to mention the impact the SGC had on the various cultures they encountered in their journeys, for better or worse.'_

_'It is clear that a coherent policy will need to be developed on what constitutes acceptable levels of intervention or influence in such societies.'_

_**Excerpt from Professor Tai Ming Lai's Report**__**  
**__**Chief of Science, CSS Pytheas**__**  
**__**Confederation Stellar Fleet Exploration & Survey Dept.**__**  
**__**2074**_

888888888888888

_'What does Religion mean in an era where Man can make worlds? What does it mean when Man lives lifespans not even those who walked during the time of the Old Testament dreamed of? When he can transcend his body into a machine and live forever? When he can make new life from the machine? Not to mention the revelations of Atlantis on the possibility of Ascension.'_

_'We must remember not even the Ancients with all their power and technology; knew what happens after death. Even after Ascension, they were still vulnerable to it, as Moros and SG1 proved so ably when they slew the blasphemous Ori Ascended. Our best scientists, building on the accomplishments of Asgard and Ancient, has only confirmed the existence of the soul and consciousness as a distinct 'energy', that can be channelled, but not moulded or changed in any way. They do not know where the soul goes after death._

_'Even Arthur C. Clarke imagined that in a near-Utopia, Man would still believe and pray to God. We are God's Temple, no matter what form we may mould ourselves in. Our Journey back to Him is as inevitable as the Universe's expansion. The Divine Being and Creator will remain within us, always.'_

_**Pope Luke I**__**  
**__**2083**_

8888888888888888888 **(The following segment was contributed by biigoh)**

_'Ah yes, the Starnet. For those of you who are old enough to recall the days of the Internet or the 'net before disclosure and all those wonderful toys THAT brought, you might guess where I'm about to go._

_The Interstellar Information Network (Starnet) much like its predecessor is an Information Network; the only differences are its speed and how pervasive it is in everyday life. Yes, there were hints that it would become nearly a part of everyday life as Starnet is, even way back in the early twenty first century._

_And because of its similarity, it isn't THAT surprising that the trinity of the Internet would find itself transplanted after a fashion into the Starnet almost from the very start. Porn. Spam Ads. And Malicious Software or Malware as it was known back in those days._

_Let it not be said that there are no such things as malicious software or programming in the Starnet. This article is realistic, unlike certain articles that paint the Starnet as an infallible font of communication, information and entertainment; certain uncomfortable truths will be and are acknowledged._

_First, the following facts will be noted here. There are those who would argue that the criminals who write malicious software do not exist in any great numbers or are a rarity. This is not so._

_From just after the very creation of Starnet and access given to the public, there have existed programmers whose software is designed to cause harm. Just as there have been programmers who work to maintain the stability of Starnet as well as designing software to combat malware. It is a testament to their skills and how well their work is that there has been virtually no hint of the existence of malicious software and their effects on Starnet._

_**Extract from 'The Birth of Starnet and those who waged war within it.'**__**  
**__**Data Archivist Anne Non**__**  
**__**2100**_

8888888888888888 _**(The next codex entry was contributed by Wolf of Dawn)**_

_"Look around you Cadets. I want each and every one of you to take a good look at the paintings, sculptures, models, holographs, and videos housed within this room. Many of you no doubt find it strange that a military academy houses one of the largest collections of art and history known to the Confederation, but look closely and you will understand._

_You are entering into a hallowed profession and here, in this hall, are the reminders of those who came before you. The history of War fills this hall and I do not mean only the small snippet of that history that is Earth's contribution. Look around you Cadets and you will see the history of combat from the days of the Alterans to the Asgard and then to Earth's conflicts._

_You will be joining the story told in this hall in the years to come. Each of you will have a part to write in the continuing history of armed conflict. Make no mistake Cadets...it is the job of this Academy to ensure that the chapters you write in that history are successes._

_Earth held a reputation in our home universe; we were the underdog that stood in the face of would-be Gods and toppled empires. We were the few who rose up for the many that could not stand for themselves. We were the children who rode out to slay the dragons of our elders and lived to tell of our triumph._

_No matter what new tyrants we may face in the years to come Humanity will be ready. You will stand ready."_

_**General Thomas Heckly**__**  
**__**Excerpt from welcoming speech to new Cadets**__**  
**__**Confederation Armed Services Academy**_

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He felt himself awake with annoyance. Sleeping was a wonderful time for the eleven year old Jacob O'Neill. It was a place filled with whatever his nascent young mind could come up with and he could control it perfectly. Usually he spent it flying around in powerful hovercraft, just like the ones the Formula One racers used; speeding around the twisting and spiralling artificial tracks of Mars, or even some of the natural off-track courses. He, like countless other Terrans of his age were enjoying the first days after the implantation of the Brainchip. A bio-circuitry based wetware-hardware interface, no bigger than three millimetres in diameter, implanted into the base of his skull.

The ability of perfect control of your own subconscious mind was one of the first skills that were taught to children receiving it, and to 'swim' in the vast cyberspace of the Starnet.

"Jacob! Get up! Time for school."

The voice of his mother further intruding on the young boy, forced him to sit up in his bed.

'Yes, I'm up, I'm up!' Jacob broadcasted his thoughts wirelessly via his Brainchip to his mother.

"Use your voice, Jacob. That's what it's there for."

"Yes, mom!" the boy groused and finally flung himself out of the bed to blearily walk over to his wardrobe. He basked in the luxury of linking with its systems directly and materialized a pair of jeans, shirt and shoes in the exact style he wanted. Now he didn't need to spend the five minutes every day vocalizing and manually inputting via holointerface.

After dressing he walked over to the mirror. His messy hair was back to its natural brown. With an annoyed thought he ordered the nanites in his scalp to get to work. Less than two seconds later, his hair was an identical shade of blond to his mothers' own.

Walking out of his room and downstairs to the kitchen he found his mother sitting at the table, intently reading something on her PortaPC whilst absently eating her breakfast.

Jacob gave her a quick hug, stealing a look at the flat holoscreen hovering a centimetre above the PortaPC. "Morning Mom."

"Morning dear."

He headed over the Food Constructor, his chosen breakfast of fruit loops in soy milk appearing in the alcove by the time he reached it. He dug into the meal and savoured the sweetness.

"What do you think?"

General Samantha O'Neill knew what her son meant. "Honestly, I don't expect it to get past the Confederation Assembly."

"Why not?"

"For the same reason it didn't ten years ago, Jake. It's been sixty years since Earth was brought into the Universe. Yes, we have advanced by massive leaps and bounds since then. Our space and resources stretch across the entire Local Cluster. We've terraformed entire worlds, built Dyson Swarms and a host of other feats I couldn't have dreamed about when I was your age. Activating the Charon Mass Relay and going through it and potentially allowing others a direct route into Sol…" Sam winced.

"But space-faring aliens couldn't be all bad, could they?"

Sam smiled ruefully. "I'm afraid the events of the Stargate Program in our old universe and the subsequent disclosure have forever left its mark on us. You're not allowed access to that portion of the Starnet memory archives yet, so you can't possibly realize what being that helpless under the threat of a superior alien foe feels like."

"But we're not helpless."

"No, but if one thing those experiences has taught us that we can never afford to be complacent or arrogant, no matter our abilities or technology. In any case, this is not conversation fit for breakfast." Jacob nodded and returned to his fruit loops, accessing the Starnet and the Cartoon Network, watching it via Retinal Imaging. Sam shook her head in bemusement; Jacob had a serious case of chip-fever. The ability to mentally control the technology and the other benefits gained was very 'cool' as they used to say, but something that wore off with time. She had also had it, but increasingly found the appeal of simply holding something in your hand and reading from it much more satisfying. Humanity was a tactile species, after all.

Jacob finished his meal as his eyes caught the holoclock on the wall and sprinted out of the kitchen and back to his room. He was back downstairs in no time with his own A4 sized School-issued PortaPC and his mother was waiting in the living room.

"Ready?" Jacob nodded, while she quickly appropriated him for a kiss on the cheek. "Good, now have fun at school, and don't let the Unified Field Theory teacher intimidate you."

"I won't. Bye, mom." His mind in the house's local cyberspace saw what his mom was doing, as she gave instructions to the Transporter system. He wished for the hundredth time that he could get access, but like a hovercraft license…he would only be able to when he was eighteen.

Sam watched as the form of her son was engulfed in the white light by the House Transporter and whisked away. She still had an hour before she was due to give a lecture at the Space Force Academy, so she took the time for a nice walk outside the house and its surrounding woods, finally coming to a stop on the dock near the infamous lake where Jack would just fish for hours on end. He had actually gotten around to introducing real fish into the small lake fifty years ago. With some careful management it had become self-sustainable, and only occasionally would he actually catch a fish for consumption when Jack got tired of the 'computer constructed' food.

There was, of course, absolutely no difference between such food and real thing, but Jack and a lot of other people in Confederation space went for 'food-by-nature' whenever possible. It the end it probably boiled down to 'psychological' need more than anything else.

She laid down on the deck chair and stared at her own reflection. It always struck her when she stared at it, that she actually looked younger now at one hundred and one years old than she had been before she walked into that fateful first briefing which had introduced her to Jack O'Neill, just before the Second Mission to Abydos. Barring illness or injury, she had theoretically millennia to enjoy this body…all thanks to a combination of genengineering, TRT (Telemere Replacement Therapy) and a perfected Rejuvenation Therapy (without becoming System Lord in the process)…and even after that there were options.

She had no idea if she ever wanted to live that long, although there was an infinite Universe to see first.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**1****st**** May, 2140**

**Earth-Luna Orbit**

Samantha O'Neill sat in the full shuttle, which had given her the seat just inside the hatch. Sure she could have simply beamed herself over to her new posting, but the Naval traditions that had crept into the Stellar Fleet was pervasive. With so many national Naval servicemen and women in comparison to the Air Forces, meant that after the Armed Forces Merger, the Fleet had a decidedly 'Wet Navy' feel. This meant that a new commanding officer of a ship had to transition to ship the 'old-fashioned' way.

The old fashioned way of getting from point A to B, was the sole reason that sixty seater shuttles like the one she was in still existed. There were still folks in the Confederation who absolutely refused to go through a Transporter or even walk though a Stargate between planets within Confed space. Not that she blamed people...she actually knew what the thing did all the way down to the sub-sub atomic level, and looking at it from a neutral observer perspective made her somewhat amazed that she herself used it as often as she did. The sheer violence of forces that a Transporter tamed was amazing.

The shuttle quivered gently as it docked to the ninety-kilometre mass of Confederation Space Station _Freya;_ shaped like a giant snowflake in space, it was one of the Stellar Fleet's foremost shipyards in orbit over Luna. The light above the hatch blinked amber as the shuttle settled into Armstrong's docking buffers, then burned a steady green as pressure equalized in the boarding tube. The panel slid aside, and Sam stepped briskly through it.

She was in full uniform; grey long sleeved formal top with a high white collar, and black trousers, with equally black formal shoes. The two thick gold bars of a Major General on her sleeves, and the holo-bars of all her accomplishments hovered a millimetre above her left chest. The red bands along her shoulders indicated her presence in the Command Track, yet on her right arm the holopatch of the Sciences Department showed her first love. Her synthplast belt held her shrunken PortaPC in a holster, much like a gunslinger would've carried a Colt revolver.

Her uniform and identity when it became apparent to the shipyard tech manning the hatch on the other side of the tube caused his salute response to be flawed by a brief hesitation. It was only to be expected and Sam didn't blame the young man for it. The original SG1 had been quite famous in the initial years after Disclosure, and the media attention had been irritating to say the least. It was one of the reasons Sam had commanded the _Hammond_ for so long, just to avoid the adoring and unwanted attention of the masses. Thankfully they were old news by now, only remaining somewhat famous within the Armed services.

She breezed through the arrival gate to the concourse and with a mental request to Freya station's central computer a virtual route to the personnel tubes was overlaid in her vision. She followed it, unburdened by any baggage, as all of it had already been beamed to her new command.

She requested a tube capsule, and one was helpfully prioritized and provided by the Station's on duty Synthetic Intelligence.

'_Thank you_.' She broadcasted her thoughts.

'_You're welcome, General. It's not as if we can let you be late to assume command of the first Contact-authorized Explorer, now can we. Not to mention the fact you're taking the very first of the new Infinity Class._'She sensed the SIs amusement as the capsule arrived, and she stepped into it.

Neil Armstrong knew where she was headed, but it was only polite to allow her to tap in the destination into the capsule's holopanel controls. She sat down and allowed the excitement to show somewhat on her face, as the capsule sped away down the grav tubeway.

'_Did you have fun building her?'_

'_Oh yes, the yard dogs and I have never produced such a fine creation.__ Dreadnaughts and Carriers are boring and positively ordinary in comparison to the Infinity_.' Sam could literally feel the pride in the SIs voice. '_Oh do you mind if join you?_'

'I'm probably going to be stuck in here for fifteen minutes, so please do.'

A sitting hologram appeared opposite her of a handsome man wearing an archaic blue NASA jumpsuit. It was the spitting image of Neil Armstrong as he had looked during the Apollo 11 mission. He was even wearing the Apollo 11 Eagle patch on his right arm.

"Feeling historic, Commander?"

Armstrong shrugged. "Please, call me Neil. And yes…I'm very tempted to request transfer to your ship. Though we have encountered thirteen alien species within the Local Cluster thus far, only four of these are advanced enough for us to have limited holographic contact with. The journey to meet a true space-faring civilization will be something special, indeed."

"Definitely," she agreed with an excited nod. She had so longed to return to the simplicity of ship life in the black void after a very long career teaching at the Fleet and Space Force Academies, whilst raising her three sons. With all the children now adults, and after embarking on a ten year retraining period, she had finally been awarded with the command of an Explorer. She had initially just been happy to do this, but the Supreme Commander of the Confed Fleet, Jack O'Neill, had seen fit to put the dispensation and responsibility to make First Contact on his wife's shoulders.

She and Neil continued a friendly conversation, catching up since their last meeting Neil had been a fellow teacher with her at the Space Force Academy. He had taught there for only fifteen years, but had used the time wisely to study the new physics and knowledge that mankind had access to now, especially in relation to space travel and ship building.

It was during that time that he had decided to transfer himself into synthoid form as he had been one of the rare people whose original bodies just didn't take well to TRT. Eventually, he came to work here when the _Freya_ had finished construction.

The personnel capsule came to a stop, and she stepped out into the spacious gallery of the spacedock, her eyes swept over her new command at last. _CSS da Gama_ floated in her mooring beyond the thick transsteel. The dark hull glistened with the shipyard illumination, and Sam could still see the occasional yard drone and worker doing last minute finishing off work.

The shape of the ship vaguely reminded her of the chevrons on a Stargate. Its aft section was a wide c-shape, with the engine emitters a long unbroken line along that. The hull curved inward as the eye ranged along the length of it, until it was a thin long nose. A partial pyramid structure also rose out of the aft section of the hull, no doubt that area had a nice observation and astronomical facilities. She could also see the Plasma beam weapon emitters and Particle Beam arrays studded all over, not to mention the Auto Mass Drivers.

"The Infinity Class, based on the Alteran Destiny Class," Neil gestured with a flourish and a broad grin. "Seven hundred and forty eight meters long, width from starboard wing blade to port is five hundred and forty meters. Class 3 ISIG Hyperdrive. She's powered by three Neutrino Ion Generators, twelve Subspace Capacitor taps, and a brand new system we managed to trawl out of Atlantis' database." He trailed off dramatically. "We're calling it a Star Plasma Fuel System, and it's exactly what it means. The ship has Collectors that extend from the ventral section…it raises it's Conformal Shields and then does a swing through the corona of any star and you've just refuelled."

"You're telling me I don't have to RTB?"

Neil nodded. "Theoretically, you can keep a ship like this out there for millions of years without having to see the inside of shipyard. It especially helps when you've got an onboard Stargate as well, for personnel rotation and you have on board hydroponics, science labs, MCDs, to name but a few."

Sam considered gaping like a fish, but that was not something a one hundred and seventy five year old woman did in front of another even older living legend.

"I also see that she's well armed."

"If you're going to be out there all alone, you have to be able to take care of yourself. Not to mention we have to show any space faring aliens out there, that we aren't pushovers. The Infinity Class has Transphase Plasma Beams, Rapid Fire Tau Particle Projector Cannons, and the AutoMass Drivers in all firing arcs; you can bring almost everything to bear in your forward arc. In the nose is something special though, you have a Lantean Class Spatial Shearing Beam."

"Goodness, I might as well be captaining a Dreadnaught anyway," Sam shook her head in amazement, her eyes narrowed. "You haven't even gotten to the Missile weapons, yet."

"You have two Variable Warhead Phase Missile Launchers on the dorsal of each wing blade."

"Okay, that will definitely get the point across to anyone we might encounter," Sam declared appreciatively.

She stood there for a good three minutes admiring the sleek lines of _her_ new ship before she managed to tear her attention away at last and head for the crew tube. The two Marines that stood at parade rest, watched her approach, and then snapped to attention as she reached them.

Sam place her hand into the Scanner podium next to the hatch, and she felt as the computer did a virtual handshake with her mind to confirm her identity one last time, in addition to a physical scan, right down to her DNA and even her Consciousness itself.

It flashed green in confirmation.

When it did, both Marines, in gleaming space black segmented armour saluted sharply. Sam returned it and bid goodbye to Neil, before walking into the access tube. She idly wondered who the _da Gama_ would have as an AI.

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**CSS da Gama**

Sam was met on the inside hatch by a group of nine people, who came to attention immediately, saluted and even a Bosun's mates whistle joined in the formality over the intercom. Most prominent in the welcoming committee was the woman wearing a Commander's uniform. Her short dark brown hair and hazel eyes were hard, and that face had elements in it that was distinctly familiar, even the woman's compact build was reminiscent of the man.

Sam casually returned the group's salute. "Permission to come aboard?"

"Permission granted," Commander Elizabeth Shepard replied formally, dropping her salute.

"I trust our new surroundings haven't given you and the crew too much trouble?" Sam asked. They had originally been slated to embark upon the tried and true Xu Fu Class of Explorer ship, but the shipyards had announced that the new _da Gama_ could be made ready in time for the First Contact Expedition.

"None, General…excuse me, ma'am, I mean…Captain."

"Very well," Sam walked along the line, mentally cataloguing that all of her selected command staff was here. She exchanged smiles and a nod with her appointed CMO,

Dr Carson Beckett, formerly of the Atlantis Expedition. She had fought tooth and nail to get him. He was the most innately knowledgeable Xeno-biological Doctor in all of the Confederation, as he had been the pioneer in that field; studying the less advanced sapient species in Terran space and had on occasion made controlled 'house-calls' to the four Contact-level civilizations – on one memorable occasion curing a plague that had been threatening to wipe out almost sixty percent of the affected species' population.

There was one person standing at the end of the line that was not known to her. He was a tall man wearing the Confed Fleet uniform, with a rather pointed patrician nose, immaculately styled long hair, held in a pony tail. She finally noticed the stylized Vitruvian Man patch on his uniform.

"And you are…?"

A deep English accent responded. "Lt Commander James Cook, ma'am, designated AI of CSS da Gama."

"A pleasure to meet you, Commander Cook. How are you finding the ship's cyberspace?"

"It is more than adequate, Captain. I actually feel rather spoiled. The _Xu Fu_'s are country cottages in comparison."

"I don't doubt that," Sam looked at the brightly lit, spotless, silvery corridors that branched away from the airlock.

"May I escort you to the bridge, Captain?" Commander Shepard asked, and she nodded.

"You may."

Shepard turned to the welcoming party, "Dismissed." Everyone relaxed and headed off to their stations, whilst Shepard and Cook led the way into the ship.

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The Bridge of any Terran vessel was buried in the centre most part of the ship. _da Gama_ was no exception. Another common feature was that each control station on the Bridge was actually half-sunk into the deck, and all the holocontrols were perfectly within arms reach of anyone seated in the ergonomic seat buried within it. The seat was also a fully functional acceleration couch. Again this was to keep crew being flung off their feet from longitudinal shockwaves induced by weapon impacts, yes, there were Inertial compensators and Shields, but Terran ship builders always built for the worst case scenario. Shields, no matter how powerful they became, could always be battered down with enough sheer firepower, or if the enemy's smart about it and used something that ignored shields partially or completely, then armour was all that stopped you from becoming a cloud of rapidly dissipating plasma.

The Bridge crew shot to their feet. "Commander on the deck!" declared the Lieutenant at the Helm.

Shepard waved them down. "As you were."

Sam surveyed her new domain with a satisfied grin, and her feet automatically carried her to the Captain's station, housed perfectly in the centre of the circular Bridge. It faced a viewscreen that gave the illusion that they were currently within the upper observation pyramid, and gave a wonderful view of the neighbouring arm of the Space Station cutting through the black backdrop of infinite space. This catered very nicely to the human need to see where you were going, or to look over the battlespace.

Sam dearly wanted to just sink into that chair and merge into the cyberspace of _da Gama_, and explore her new command, but it still wasn't her ship just yet. She turned and nodded to Shepard, who didn't need prompting on what to do next.

Shepard walked over to the Captain's station, merely placing her hand on the chair's armrest and initiated the shipwide PA. "All hands, this is Commander Shepard. Stand at Attention."

All three hundred and twenty three crew of the _da Gama_, stopped what they were doing and obeyed the order. Their minds connected to the cyberspace of the ship, they had known already that this was coming and had prepared to stop their work accordingly.

Shepard turned to face Sam and declared formally, "Ma'am, I am ready to be relieved."

Sam pulled out her PortaPC tapped on it a few times and read, "From Space Marshall Jonathan O'Neill, Supreme Commander of the Confederation Stellar Fleet, to Major General Samantha O'Neill, Confederation Space Force. You are hereby directed and required to proceed aboard _CSS da Gama;_ Confederation Stellar Fleet Exploration & Survey Dept. There to take upon yourself Master and Command of said vessel and its crew.

"Your orders are to proceed to the projected destination of the Charon Mass Relay and begin detailed exploration of Mass Relay Network from there, with aim of detecting and initiating First Contact with a space-faring alien race. Upon your own judgement to initiate diplomatic contact and if potentially hostile, evaluate any potential threat such a race may pose to the Confederation."

"This is Lt Commander Cook, AI of CSS da Gama, data integrity of the orders are one hundred percent, and have been verified as genuine via Confed Central Command."

Sam holstered the PortaPC and exchanged salutes with Commander Shepard. "Ma'am, I relieve you."

"I stand relieved."

"Return to your duties, XO." Shepard turned on her heel and walked over to the XO station. "Crew, stand at ease. You may return to duties. Captain O'Neill, out." With the ceremony complete, Sam disabled the PA and sat on her new command chair, which automatically moulded itself to her back perfectly. She gave a single glance to the nest of holographic displays that surrounded her. "Now let's see what you've got," she whispered to the ship, before submerging her mind into the local cyberspace.

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	5. Chapter 5

**Vyoudr Nebula**

**Apav III**

**229 Cycles Post Exile** (245 T-Years)

Feda'Gazu vas Imazado stood on a high outcropping, staring up at the rather diffuse purple sky, filled with shifting cloud cover with the single natural satellite of this planet looming in front of a curtain of stars. It was amazing to think that it was technically mid-day based on the position of the sun and yet to his eyes it barely qualified as twilight. He sighed into his environ suit helmet. It was another forlorn hope. The planet had a suitable atmosphere, but conditions beyond that were hardly what any sentient would call ideal.

He clenched his fist and stared at the damning readings of the holo Omni-tool surrounding his left forearm; -120 Otos temperature, 1.4 surface gravities, 1.34 Quarian atmospheres. There was no way Captain Ysin'Mal would be happy with this find. Apav III had initially attracted his attention because of the single moon that orbited it and long range spectrography had indicated the presence of oxygen. Now it was a wasted trip in every sense of the word.

_Curse the Universe! Curse the blasted Geth! And Curse the bloody idiots who thought building them was a good idea!_

The crunch of gravel underfoot broke him out of his brooding anger. The elaborate green and grey patterned environsuit of his second in command and pilot, Hilo'Jaa vas Imazado approached him.

"Captain, scans have found some deposits of platinum in that mountain range..."

"Worth sending a mining ship from the flotilla?" Feda interrupted sourly.

"It's a single vein; I estimate it'll yield about fifty thousand units with about three months of exploitation."

"That's at least something I can show for our journey, security for any mining ship will need to be quite high though, we're on the crossroads between the Terminus and Citadel space here. Speaking of which, how's the Flotilla's newest Marine doing?"

Hilo suppressed a snicker. "Let's just say he's...enthusiastic."

"Kelaah, can't he give it a rest," Feda sighed and wondered what had possessed Captain Ysin to assign a Marine fresh off basic training to his scout ship. His crew was more than experienced enough to handle any situation that could possibly present itself and while another gun was eminently welcome in any encounter with the numerous dangers of the Galaxy, Feda was sure that the enthusiastic rookie had been foisted on him just get him out of Ysin's midst.

The twelve rotation journey from the Mass Relay to the Apav system had thoroughly irritated the seven strong crew of the _Cyniad_, for the newest member of their crew was trying to be extremely...professional and disciplined. Those were the only words Feda could ascribe to it.

Kal'Reegar vas Imazado would wake up an hour before the rest of the ship's sleep cycle. He would do his daily physical training as if he had never left Basic, his combat rated environ suit made an infernal racket throughout the small scout ship's decks, enough to wake everyone who was on a sleep rotation. He would never part with his rifle; it was always in its compact form on his back. He had constantly pestered Feda for the crew to practice anti-boarding drills every day. There was also the occasion when he had taken to following Feda around like a bodyguard, and when he had been ordered to desist, he had simply turned his attentions to the various airlocks of the ship and began to fashion all a manner of rather ingenious traps for any potential hostile boarder to run into; from cobbled together devices that would explode with reactor plasma, to even electrifying the decking. Then when that was done, he had taken to walk random patrols throughout the ship.

Never mind the fact that they would certainly have ample warning of any pirate ship that attempted to attack them and would be able to arm themselves from the ship armoury in time to fend them off.

The truth was there wasn't much for a Marine to do on the Cyniad. So when they had finally landed upon Apav III, Kal immediately taken the opportunity to set up some targets and practice his gunnery while the rest of the crew did their jobs in the survey.

"Where is he now?"

"He's with Anwa in the mountain range. She requested an extra pair of arms to lug some ore samples into the hovercraft."

"Well, at least he can do some of the heavy lifting. How much is she going to be bringing back?"

"As much as the hovercraft can carry."

"Ah, so she's got another project dreamed up," Feda laughed. Anwa was the Cyniad's Chief Machinist and primarily responsible for keeping the thing spaceworthy, it was a recently retired twenty year old Batarian scout ship and was very temperamental. Only the skill and engineering instincts of a Quarian could keep the ship running. To that end, Anwa was always tinkering with creative engineering ideas and efficiency increases that would keep the ship ticking well past its retirement date.

Feda felt his omni-tool automatically switch itself on and appear around his arm. He reflexively lifted it up to see why...but knew immediately that something had gone wrong, somewhere. Only emergency signals and broadcasts to his suit could cause it to behave like this.

"_This is Anwa!"_ The urgency in the Machinist's voice and the fact that she was out breath sent shivers up his back. "_We've got...a problem...up here_."

Fada tapped on the omnitool. "Feda here, what's happening?"

"_Kal'Reegar...he's trapped_."

"Trapped?"

"_There's no time to go into details, Captain, except that we were in a cave trying to get direct access to the platinum vein...there was some native creature that ambushed us...we had to shoot an explosive round off to kill it..."_

"And it caused the tunnel to collapse?"

"_Yes, Captain...we need to get him out...sir, Kal stayed behind to buy me time to get out..."_

"Are you still in contact with him?"

"_According to his hardsuit computer he's unconscious but still alive."_

"Get the hovercraft back to our position, as fast as you can."

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The first thing that penetrated his awareness was the pain that seemingly spiked itself through his brain. He groaned and fought through it to surface into consciousness. And promptly wished he hadn't. Just beyond the transparent material of the faceplate of his suit was what appeared to be a solid wall of rock, which glowed dimly in the illumination from his helmet.

He also could now feel that the pain was coming from his left leg. He dared to move his head slightly to the left, and in his peripheral vision only saw yet more rock, but it allowed him to see the jagged edge of another large rock that had landed just to his left, and had stopped him from being crushed like a tava fruit under a cook's mallet.

His body was near perfectly wedged in a hollow that had been formed. Near perfectly, because his left leg was trapped under another boulder.

Kal had to forcefully focus his mind onto other things, like mentally revising the startup procedures for a fusion torch drive or the steps to fieldstrip his accelerator rifle, anything to keep his mind away from the sheer numbing terror that was threatening to overwhelm him at being buried alive.

"_Kal!_"

He would've jumped into air from fright if he hadn't been in this position, as it was, he felt as if someone had just plugged a fusion core into his heart.

"Bosh!" He cussed. "Not so loud, Captain!"

"_Sorry,"_ Feda apologized, "_it's about time you awoke. Don't move a muscle...we're trying to get to you now._"

"Sir, trust me, that's one thing I'm not inclined to do." He had considered for a moment to try to move his arms together to access his omni-tool, but immediately stopped. More than likely his shipmates had already remotely accessed it and his hardsuit computer, and knew more about the specifics of his predicament than he did. Kal abruptly went back to his mental exercises to stave off his terror.

Feda's voice intruded into his helmet again. "_So we saw the data that Anwa had of that monster you'd taken out...very impressive, Kal_."

"Thank you, sir. Though it landed me in this position," he replied bitterly.

"_None of that, Marine,_" Feda remonstrated. _"If it wasn't for you, that beast would've been snacking on Anwa at this moment. I know how she gets when she's working, a Geth Armature could be wreaking havoc in her engine room, and she'd be oblivious. Your alertness saved her life."_

Kal tried to cling to that fact like someone stranded in an ocean clutching a life preserver, it helped a little, but eventually he was forced to go back reciting military theory in his head. All the while berating himself for using an accelerated explosive charge in the close confines of the cave tunnels. It was something he had done on instinct and without thought in the heat of the battle against the creature.

It had been almost like the baby cousin of a Thresher Maw, except with interlinked black scales and more of a snapping mouth more suited to a mammal. It had been damage resistant enough that even incendiary rounds from his assault rifle wouldn't bring it down quickly enough, not before it got a bite into either Anwa or himself. He had aimed the AEC directly at the head of the creature, again instinctively going for a shot that had been drilled into him from day one as a Marine. The only problem was that the creature's head had been near the ceiling of the tunnel. Kal had had only a moment to admire the sight of the head exploding in a flash of splattered gore before the ominous rumbling reached him.

He knew he had to move. His mind had been screaming at his body to move. It felt like an eternity had passed before he was sprinting at the best speed he could manage, but it hadn't been enough. The last view he had of Anwa, was as she sprinted around a curve in the tunnel, before a falling rock had hammered onto his head.

He must've gotten a concussion from that because he struggled to remember anything after that.

'_Just as well, who wants to remember getting buried under a mountain of rock_,' he through morosely. "Captain, how long have you been trying to dig me out?"

"_Six time sets, its slow going...we're lasering through as fast as we dare, considering we have to worry about triggering another cave in."_

"Understood, Captain," Kal sighed. "What is my condition?"

"_Anwa has been monitoring your vitals through your hardsuit. We had to trigger a release of your suit's antibiotics supply and it automatically clamped down around the breached area on your leg_."

Kal knew instantly that his chances for survival had just taken a significant beating. Quarian physiology, even when they had had a world to call home, was not one that took kindly to being exposed to alien environments. Now with his entire race living in the sterile conditions aboard the starships of the Flotilla for over two hundred cycles, their immune systems were hardly worth the name.

The Captain didn't need to mention the hardsuit only had a limited supply of antibiotics. "How long do I have?"

Feda declared with resolve. "_We'll have you out well before then, Kal_."

Kal didn't know what to say in reply except, "Yes, Captain."

"_So...did you enjoy Czarna's latest performance?"_

Kal blinked at the sudden change in topic and guessed that Feda just wanted to help keep his mind busy. "Uh, I'm afraid I've never been one to listen to the storytellers, sir."

"_Kelaah...a Quarian who doesn't like stories?"_

"Yes, sir, I prefer dancing. My father was rather put out with me when I kept falling asleep during his family story sessions."

Feda laughed. "In that case, tell me then, who do you prefer? Pacic or Inucel?"

Kal instantly declared with no forethought needed. "Pacic, her technique is from the soul, even when she performs classics that have been done a million times before, it still seems like it's fresh and new. Inucel, while technically perfect, dazzling and flashy, she doesn't have the same impact."

That of course, set off a debate with the other Quarians working to dig him out chiming in. Finally, two time sets later, he could begin hearing the movement of rock, and the occasional deep hum of a mounted laser drill. Hope entered into his heart.

'_Perhaps I'm going to get out of this mess after all_,' he thought.

"_Kal! We're gonna have to leave you for a while...we just detected a ship entering orbit_."

Kal felt the earth under his body ripple from a sudden impact.

"_Those bosh'tet! It's a Batarian frigate, they're attacking the_ Cyniad _with orbital strikes_. _Thankfully they missed_."

"Understood, sir. Go."

"_We'll be back, Kal'Reegar, don't die on me. That's an order from your Captain_."

"Yes, sir." He railed and cursed his helplessness. His shipmates were now in a battle to save their own freedom from what was probably a Batarian slaver group that had probably picked up on their latent light lagged image and had taken to following the _Cyniad_'s light wake. Quarians were rather favoured targets of slaver rings, since their proficiency for repairing things and near legendary technical skill made attractive prospects for re-sale in the lawless Terminus Systems. Kal sincerely wished the Admirals would just park the entire Flotilla in the Terminus and just blast apart the Geth damned criminal havens and be done with it.

His only consolation was that the slavers would most certainly not want to kill them all, and the attack on the _Cyniad_ had been made with the assumption that only a skeleton crew was on board. Of course, these slavers seemed to be lousy marksmen, or they were using old targeting gear, which was what had saved the Cyniad.

Gorlat, the secondary pilot would have the ship's barriers up and it would be in the air fighting back against the frigate, which was also capable of endo-atmospheric flight. If he could harass and damage the slaver frigate enough then there would be no ground battle at all. The rest of the crew would by now be in the hovercraft and speeding along and remaining mobile, waiting for the outcome of the aerial battle.

Time seemed to crawl by. He also cursed the fact that he couldn't listen in on _Cyniad_'s general frequency, not with all the rock and mountain above and around him. He had no idea if they were winning or losing. The only way he would know was when his shipmates returned to the tunnel, where their proximity allowed communication.

The terror threatened to return again. If the Cyniad was forced to withdraw, doing a mid-flight pick up of the hovercraft, and retreating to the relative safety of faster than light velocity. Then his survival chances were effectively zero, unless the Batarians had spotted the activity at the mouth of the cave and came to investigate.

'_Death or slavery? Which would be better?_' he thought cynically. '_As a slave, I have a slim chance of escape...the _Cyniad _wouldn't give up trying to locate me, but it's a big Galaxy and the four-eyed freaks don't make it easy for their slaves to leave_.'

Kal'Reegar vas Imazado resolved then and there to fight to the death, he still had his pistol on his hip after all.

His resolve was premature and unneeded as it turned out, as white light blossomed over his form, and in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

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He had always heard stories of Quarians and other species experiencing the phenomenon known as 'lost time', a process by which the mind purposefully forgot traumatic and painful events to protect itself. That it would happen to him had never crossed his mind in the slightest. He had after all gone through the most toughest military training that the Quarian Migrant Fleet had to offer; training that not only included the physical skills of war, but also to endure the mental trials that such a life could throw at you.

Nothing could prepare him for the sheer feeling of panic and fear he was now feeling. It had been bad enough when he had been trapped and buried under rock, but to go from that in one moment; to..._this_...in seemingly another moment was too much.

Kal'Reegar felt his heart in his throat as he vaulted off a yielding yet comfortable grey bed and took in his new environment with alarm, and his own state of dress. His envirosuit was gone, in its place was a wholly unfamiliar suit that now clung to him, it was a shimmering black, but didn't encompass his entire body, his hands, feet and head was exposed to the slightly chilly air. He groaned and resigned himself to perhaps a week of sickness from this open air exposure, assuming there wasn't anything harmful in the new environment that would kill him before that.

He also now took in his new surroundings and felt his heart rate lower somewhat. It was a large and spacious room, with solid silvery metallic walls and floors, which had unfamiliar organic curves as decor. But the real reason for his relaxation was the sight of a viewport on one side, beyond which was a twinkling starfield.

'I'm on a ship,' he thought with relief. 'At least I'm no longer trapped under a mountain...'

But it was also clear that he had not been rescued by the _Cyniad_ or any of its crew. He also dismissed the idea that this was the Batarian slaver frigate; there was no way such a small ship would have this much space inside it to waste. He was clearly in some sort of sparse quarters; there was the bed and a square table with strange patterns woven into its structure in the middle of room.

He approached it slowly and noticed something odd was resting on it. It was a black finely smoothed and polished ovoid crystal of sorts, slightly smaller than his hand. His curiosity was pulling at him to pick it up and look at it closely, but he firmly reminded himself that he was in the custody of an unknown party at the moment and that it would not be wise to pick up strange things. He considered that perhaps he was on an Asari Dreadnought or large Cruiser...but as he listened carefully to the din around him he dismissed that thought...the life support system of the ship, the artificial gravity, the resonance of engines...it was totally unfamiliar and alien. Kal'Reegar didn't consider himself to be a particularly good machinist, but he was still Quarian and had been taught the inner workings of ships and machines since he was old enough to pick up a tool.

He carefully scanned the room's walls with his eyes. There was a door on one side, but he dismissed the idea of trying to open it...there was no control panel, holographic or physical, or any kind of leverage to try and pry it open. The door was near seamless against the wall, and only a thin dark line at its edges allowed him to see that there was a door at all. In his experience, rooms of this size only existed on Dreadnoughts of the various Council species, and they would never be this frivolously wasted; only housing a single person.

Kal just about jumped three feet into the air when he was saw that he was suddenly not alone. He had seen it first out of the corner of his eye. There was now a...Quarian? standing in the room with him, on the other side of table. This Quarian was dressed similarly, in that odd black suit, and his head, hands and feet were also completely exposed to the open air.

"Hey! Where did you come from?" Kal exclaimed, falling instinctively in a defensive posture.

The Quarian merely smiled in an enigmatic manner and held out a hand, to show that he was holding another of the odd black crystals in his hand. He then gestured to the crystal that Kal had neglected to pick up, then to his mouth, and then tapped his head.

Kal frowned. 'The guy wants me to pick up the crystal. Why?' The strange Quarian again tapped his mouth but this time a string of strange, incomprehensible sounds was spoken. The language was like none Kal had ever heard. 'The crystal is a translation device? Why would he need one if he's Quarian?'

The Quarian now huffed oddly, put his hand on his hips and pointed at the crystal. Kal gave his paranoia a rest as obviously whoever this was, had had ample opportunity to kill him in the time they had taken to dig him out from the mountain.

The Quarian smiled, as he saw that Kal was picking up the crystal.

"Finally, now we can...garble...-t-au-k." Kal had been so startled that the words suddenly made sense that he had dropped the crystal. He quickly picked it up with embarrassment. "Now we can talk."

"Okay, what's going on? How did you get in here? Who are you? How did I get here?"

"Before I answer your questions, please, realize that I am only appearing to you this way to put you at ease and that I am not a member of your species. My name is Daniel Jackson and I'm a Contact specialist for my people."

Kal blinked at hearing that. "You're...not Quarian."

"If Quarian is the name you call yourselves by, then no. You are also not a prisoner; in fact, consider yourself an honoured guest aboard the Explorer Starship _CSS da Gama._"

"Oh," it was the only intelligent thing that Kal could say through his astonishment.

"It's a ship sent by my race to scout for any space-faring civilization out in the greater galaxy, especially those that use the Mass Relays."

"Your race being? And what is the purpose behind your scouting?" Kal'Reegar felt his fear ratchet back up slightly. First Contact with a new Race in the known Galaxy had proven to always be a time of tumultuous change, and usually not for the better.

"We call ourselves _Terrans_," the latter word went untranslated for some reason. "And we're scouting only because we wish to learn more about the Galaxy that is our home, and all the life that dwells in it. We wish to learn all there is to learn and make the future a better place for our descendants and friends."

"Terrans," Kal tried the alien word thoughtfully. "Okay, so if this is a form you've assumed to make me comfortable, how does your species really look? And how can you assume different forms?"

"Oh, I can't really change my shape, not exactly; you see I'm not in the room with you." The Terran in the shape of a Quarian stepped forward, waved his arm and it went _through_ the table...the arm rippled like water and distorted before settling back to normalcy. "This is just a holographic representation of me." Kal just stood in silent astonishment again. It was certainly the most realistic hologram he'd ever seen. No transparency, no distortion, nothing. "And this is how I really look."

The hologram image rippled over its entire body, and settled into a more distinctly alien shape. The Terran was bipedal, with two arms that ended in hands that had five fingers. The face had two eyes, a pointed noise, mouth; it was quite similar to an Asari in those respects. But differences were clear; styled fur grew on the Terran's head, instead of tentacles, and the skin was off-white, or a light brown, it was also clearly a _he_, whereas the Asari were monogendered. The clothes the Terran wore were a black, white and grey suit top, with black densely woven trousers and gleaming shoes.

"I apologize for not being with you in the room personally. It's just more convenient and safer for either party or ideally both, to appear in holographic form during a First Contact."

Kal nodded in understanding. That was really handy and smart, if the Contact went badly, the Terrans could simply vanish and there would nothing the other guy could do about it. "Oh, what's the deal with this...suit?"

"Your own suit is being repaired, and will be returned to you shortly. What you are currently wearing is serving as a temporary substitute and the room you are in has been sterilized to the nanoscale. It's as clean as anything can be made. Healing you proved quite a challenge with your strange physiology and poor immune system."

Now that he was reminded of it, Kal couldn't believe that he had forgotten about his injury. He reflexively stared down and regarded the limb that seemed to have not a single indication that it had been injured at all; no scarring, no lingering soreness.

"Well, you guys got it wrong, if you thought this would substitute for my evironsuit," Kal muttered. "For one thing, my head is uncovered..."

"Try and put your hands together," Daniel interrupted with a smile.

Kal looked at the Terran strangely and complied, or tried to...the moment his right hand almost touched his left, a field of green energy blossomed into the visual spectrum, that perfectly surrounded his hands. He tried to touch his own face, and again, an energy barrier seemed to perfectly surround his exposed areas.

Kal was flabbergasted; it couldn't be a kinetic barrier, as that would've also stopped air as well. Yet it was clearly some form of perfectly moulded energy field that let air through, yet was protecting him in some manner and it was constantly active. The constant power requirement of that was huge, yet this suit did it with no problem.

"It's what we call a Smart Shield," Daniel explained. "It's a shield that is selectively permeable that lets in what we wish, and keeps out what we don't. At the moment it's filtering anything that might be a threat to you...just in case our sterilization of this room missed something. In fact, with that suit you could walk into any environment and not have a single problem."

Kal absorbed the idea of that and wondered if the Terran was exaggerating. Such a shield was way beyond even Asari science. "Then why the effort with the room?"

"Nothing's perfect, better safe than sorry," Daniel sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "We wouldn't want our species' first meeting to be soured by your death, when it could've easily been avoided." The Terran suddenly turned his head to look off to the side, as if he was paying attention to something else and his face twisted into a frustrated expression. "I'm afraid we need your help."

A holographic screen appeared in mid-air next to the Terran and showed a high resolution sensor image of Apav III. Two blinking dots appeared, one on the upper hemisphere on the largest continent, and another on a large island chain in the lower hemisphere. "What you're seeing is the positions of your ship and the other who attacked you."

"So the _Cyniad_ survived," Kal sighed in relief. "What happened? Did you manage to see the battle?"

"Yours actually came out on top with some pretty impressive piloting, forced the other to do a barely controlled crash landing. However, the _Cyniad_ has lost shields and suffered major inertial compensator damage, forcing a landing as well."

"Bosh, that's not easy to repair in the field."

"I suppose not, but there is a further problem." The image zoomed in steadily to focus on the Batarian position. Given the resolution quality the _da Gama_ was probably in orbit of Apav III. It showed in amazing detail the stubby, long rectangular form of the frigate, crashed into a barren island. He could even see the humanoid forms roaming about the craft in a hurry, they all seemed to be moving back and forth from the crashed ship to a...

"Those bosh'tet! They're going launch a ground attack." The Batarians were busy packing supplies into what was clearly an armoured hover craft that had survived their crash. The thing was also armed with a large mass accelerator cannon that would easily lay waste to the crew of the _Cyniad_ from long range.

"Their ship is beyond repair, yours isn't but they know that _Cyniad_ had to make an emergency landing as well. Is there a reason why they suddenly attacked you? Is this their territory?"

"This is a completely unclaimed system by any power. They attacked only for the profit and status it would bring them to capture and sell us either in the Terminus Systems or the Batarian Hegemony."

Kal noticed that the Terran's posture had become rigid, and his strange blue eyes glittered intently with some foreign emotion that he had no context for. "Slaves?"

"Yes, my people are famed throughout known space as master technicians, computer experts and engineers. This makes any Quarian somewhat of a profitable commodity to slavers," Kal explained bitterly. He saw the Terran's eyes narrow and his lips thin.

Daniel looked off to the side again and nodded. The top-down image of the Batarians zoomed out until they were only as small as tiny dots and the skewed shape of the island they had crashed on was in focus.

"I can't believe I've forgotten this, but what is your name?"

"Kal'Reegar vas Imazado," he answered after a brief pause. "Reegar is just fine though."

"Reegar," Daniel nodded. "Pleased to meet you. If you'll indulge my curiosity, what's the 'vas Imazado' for?"

"Oh, that's my home ship."

"Home ship?"

"Oh, yeah, guess you wouldn't know, being new to the greater galaxy," Kal stopped himself. "Sorry, but before I answer, I just have to know...are you going to be doing something about the Batarians?"

"We're sending in an Infiltrator to data mine any of their computers that might be intact, once she's retrieved, which should be in thirty standard minutes...well, your friends on the _Cyniad_ will have nothing to worry about. I assure you."

"Orbital strikes?" Kal asked hopefully.

"For the slaver ship, yes, but nothing so crude for slavers themselves, we don't want to damage the planet too much. But anyway, let's talk about the Quarian people and the galaxy they live in."

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**Bridge**

**CSS da Gama**

**17****th**** December 2140 **

General Samantha O'Neill stared at the holographic screen in front of her, carefully reading through the Contact report Daniel had filed. It made for much better reading than the Intelligence gleaned from the Batarian frigate, which had left a bitter taste in her mouth. "Lieutenant Commander."

The AI was at her side at once with an expectant expression on his face. He had calculated that this was coming. "Captain."

"Your opinion?"

"It's horrific and a pity," Cook sighed with sadness on his face. "The Quarians could not come to terms with their creations: the Geth, and that it would lead to such slaughter; billions dead, exiled from their homeworld and space, condemned to a nomadic existence on salvaged and second hand starships. Their immune systems being what they are, they couldn't even easily just settle on a new colony world. This blasted Citadel Council didn't lift a finger to help."

"Punishing them was seen as more important, rather than addressing the problem," Sam shook her head. "But to go this extreme, two hundred and sixty T-years..."

"The Council probably wants them to wander the stars as a permanent, travelling example of what will happen when their member species disobey the common law."

"I wonder why this Council has laws against AI?"

"Fear," Cook replied simply. "You've been fortunate that you've had so many examples of my kind gone wrong to learn from, Captain. The Quarians didn't and I'm sure the Asari didn't either, perhaps they also had an unpleasant experience in their own history with AIs that led them to create that law."

"Reegar's not exactly a history buff about other species, that could easily be the case," Sam agreed, her eyes looked beyond to the slowly moving view of the planet around which her ship orbited. She stood from her seat and walked over to the gigantic viewscreen, holding her hands behind her back. "What about the Batarians?"

Cook joined her near the screen to contemplate the view. "Deeply disturbing, but then again slavery was an integral part of Goa'uld culture too. The Batarians just have a caste system added to that."

"And the Council lets them maintain an Embassy on the Citadel," Sam said incredulously. "Yet they kick the Quarians out on the curb."

"Reegar doesn't know exactly why, it could be that there is some economic benefit that makes the Council ignore the Batarians, or the fact that they are small fry in comparison to the Asari, Turians and Salarians; if you are to judge by the political map of the galaxy."

"I really hoped I wouldn't have had to employ _da Gama_'s weapons until much, much later. Are we one hundred percent sure that this is just a rogue slaver gang?"

"My analysis of their databanks is accurate," Cook stated flatly. "Unless, the slavers are in the habit of carrying around falsified data, star charts, courses, and orders from their bosses in the Terminus."

"Weps," she turned to the relatively young Weapons Officer Francis Ortiz at his station. "Give me a firing solution for surgical RKKVs on the Batarian frigate. Then a Demat program for the Batarians, but only them, and leave the hovercraft alone."

"Aye, Captain." The swarthy skinned Hispanic merely twirled his hands through the holographs in front of him, manipulating them, but doing ninety percent of the work with his mind. "Solution plotted, our orbit will bring us in optimal firing position in thirty seconds."

Sam nodded and waited silently, counting down in her own mind and keeping mental eyes on the ships position within its cyberspace.

"Fire."

Three shaped nickel-iron slugs three meters long and thirty centimetres wide was autoloaded into the barrels of one of _da Gama_'s Mass Driver turrets as they orientated into position. They were instantly accelerated by gravitic and element zero coils at a fraction of the speed they were truly capable of. It was essentially now a man-made asteroid that was on its way to impact with a predetermined area – the island. The slugs almost immediately began atmospheric re-entry. They were surrounded in an ablative shell that would protect the slug from the friction, ensuring that no mass would be burnt off prematurely and thereby reduce its net impact energy. Gravity had already begun to immediately exert its pull, further increasing that speed.

Most Terran crews called them Rods from God. This was due to the awesome sight RKKVs gave observers on the ground. The friction of the atmosphere against the slug caused a streaking line of fire to trace itself across the sky until it finally impacted against its target at a perfectly calculated hypersonic speed. The Batarian frigate had no barriers up and its structural integrity was non-existent, what armour it had was by necessity not that thick or dense, it was designed more for speed, agility and hard-fast strikes.

The Kinetic Kill Vehicle split itself open an instant before impact almost like a flower blossoming and tore into the frigate. For a moment it was literally cut in half, near vaporizing an entire section of the ship...then the slug hit the earth beneath and the kinetic energy blasted that mass in the only direction it could go, upwards. Another instant later the remaining two slugs blasted into the remaining fore and aft sections.

Three columns of dirt and dust towered into the air mingled with the occasional burst of flame of the plasma liberated from the destroyed fusion reactor. The nine Batarians who had had to remain behind because there was not enough room in the armoured hovercraft were killed instantly, and there had been no warning of the incoming KKVs due to the damage already incurred from the crash and battle with the Quarians.

The seven Batarians in the armoured hovercraft was by this time almost two hundred kilometres away from the island and while they would've seen the streaks of flame crossing the sky, they were all ensconced within the hovercraft and too far away to see the demise of their partners in crime. Its sensors only had general range of fifty kilometres in every direction. Whilst they could've radioed back to their partners, none of them thought of doing so, as all that was on their minds was killing every Quarian so they could take the Cyniad and escape off the planet.

It was the last thought they had in this life as exotic energy swept down from the _da Gama_'s transporter array. They were dematerialized in an instant and their energy was dissipated and diffused across a thousand kilometres of the orbital space around Apav III.

The hovercraft Virtual Intelligence was as close to confused as such a program with limited logic and reasoning could be. The only thing it could do was fall back on default programming, which was to power down the craft and keep it hovering over the ocean. It was even further confused when white light engulfed the entire craft and then it was no longer a meter above the ocean, but instead within a large artificial environment, surrounded by odd tubular craft. It faithfully recorded the event and view, before it felt its own firewalls under attack from an outside source. Its sophistication was such that it could barely slow down the intrusion...before the darkness of cybernetic oblivion claimed it.

"Target has been destroyed, Captain. The hovercraft is in our Launch Bay and powered down."

"Good work, Lieutenant." Sam praised and turned back to the view of the planet.

"I'm sure the Supreme Commander, not to mention the Assembly will back what you've done here, Captain," Cook stated.

"Is it so much to ask to have a First Contact that doesn't involve bloodshed in one form or another?" she asked bitterly. Cook didn't answer, as the question was clearly not addressed to him, but rather towards the Universe, or perhaps she was talking to that mysterious, omniscient entity his creators called God.

Sam shook her head with resignation but squared her shoulders and headed towards her station. She linked herself with cyberspace and sent her thoughts directly to Daniel.

'_Sam?'_

'_You can tell Reegar, the Batarians are no longer an issue.'_

'_Ah good, he's been getting quite antsy about that.'_

'_Ask him if he would consent to be an envoy of sorts from us, you can join him in holographic form. Tell him we'll also throw in the Batarian hovercraft as a good faith gift, and if his Captain agrees...we'll refit and repair the _Cyniad_ to spec as well when it's spaceworthy enough to come into orbit.'_

'_Okay...hmm, he agrees, and is pretty impressed that the _da Gama_ has the ability to do that.'_

'_You've shown him how the ship looks, haven't you?'_

'_Yes, I have. In the Council fleets and the Quarians, a ship the size of _da Gama_ would only be capable of limited repairs to its small craft and hardly capable of refitting something the size of a scout frigate.'_

'_Okay, we'll begin as soon as Reegar indicates he's ready. It'll be interesting to see how his shipmates react to his sudden appearance.'_

'_Yes, it will.'_

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**Apav III**

**17****th**** December 2140 **

Kal'Reegar, now back in his good as new envirosuit, blinked his eyes as the brief white haze that had overtook his vision faded, and found himself no longer aboard the guest quarters on the _CSS da Gama_, but instead the familiar vistas of Apav III. He knelt on the ground and picked up a handful of dirt, letting it fall through his fingers. His next astonished experiment was pulling back on his fingers until he felt pain.

"Ouch! Bosh!"

"Is there a reason why you are trying to hurt yourself?" Daniel asked, his face twitching with amusement.

"Just checking if this is real," Kal admitted to the Terran, who had appeared without a sound next to him. "You told me what would happen...but..."

Daniel laughed. "Yes, you are on the surface, this is most definitely not an illusion."

Kal reached out with his hand and waved it through Daniel's form, and as expected it rippled with holographic distortion. "Incredible! You guys are projecting this all the way from high orbit! How do you do that?"

"It's...complicated," the Terran understated.

"As complicated as turning me into pure energy, then reconstituting me a few thousand clicks away, and getting it right?"

Daniel shook his head. "No, that is another stratosphere of difficulty."

Kal looked around. "So where are we?"

"The Cyniad is about a click in that direction." He pointed, "behind that hill."

"Ah, stupid me," Kal groaned and switched on his omnitool, tapping on the holographic device. It confirmed what Daniel had said and he was sure he just gave the crew of the _Cyniad_ a wakeup call with is hardsuit's radar emission. And now that they were looking they would also pick up the eezo emissions from said suit. "I just pushed on the entry chime."

Daniel said wryly, "Good, now they'll at least not shoot you."

Kal enabled his radio and tuned it to appropriate frequency and encryption. "_This is Kal'Reegar to anyone on the Cyniad. Anyone home?_"

They didn't have to wait long for an incredulous reply. "_Kal!_"

"Yes, it's me, Captain."

There was a long pause and finally Captain Feda'Gazu ordered, "_Verify._"

Kal was impressed with the Captain's well founded suspicion. It looked like his example and the recent attack had made an impression. "We sail among distant stars, whirlpools of gas and dust, winds of light and energy, the currents of the ether everywhere. We will find a place we can call home one day."

"_Keelah, it really is you. How did you get out?"_

"Captain that is something that would be best explained face to face. I will tell you that we have a First Contact Alpha One circumstance."

Again there was astonished silence over the radio. Kal didn't blame the Captain; he had essentially just dumped a huge responsibility and problem on him. FC Alpha One referred to contact with a completely new and previously unknown alien power.

"_You've been in contact with them then? They're the ones who rescued you?"_

"Confirmed. A representative of theirs is with me, in a way."

"_Understood, get over here as soon as you can_."

The radio link severed.

"I will depart now and let you speak to your superior," Daniel stated. "You remember how to use the Com stone?"

Kal lifted the smoothly polished transparent crystalline device and nodded. It still baffled him how this thing could be a radio; he didn't see anything in it remotely related to a circuit or electric pathway.

"When you are ready, signal and I will appear in proximity to the stone." Daniel's holographic image promptly faded away into nothingness.

Kal began a smooth jog towards the distant _Cyniad_. Whatever happened between his Captain and the _da Gama_'s Captain, and from what he had seen on that fantastic ship; he was certain that the Quarian people would feel the repercussions of this meeting for centuries.

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End file.
